3G set to launch in India

$\"\"$ Decks were cleared today for launching 3G mobile and broadband services in the country, with the government allocating air waves to private operators after making certain amends to the licence terms.

The operators are authorised to use the spectrum for a period of 20 years from today, according to the amended licence conditions that allows companies to offer 3G services till the validity of the spectrum even if their telecom licences expire prior to that.

The government has imposed a roll-out obligation, under which the service providers would have to cover at least 90 per cent of the service areas in the metros within the next five years.

Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, RCom, Tatas, Idea Cellular, Aircel and S Tel were the operators who had bagged 3G spectrum in the auction in May that fetched the government over Rs 51,000 crore apart from about Rs 16,000 crore from the two telecom PSUs — BSNL and MTNL.