THE BHARAT Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) launched the
3G mobile services in Chennai on Sunday (February 22).
The national launch of the third generation mobile service in Chennai would help its subscribers enjoy a range of upgraded services like rich voice, data and video services, etc.
The
3G mobile services make possible video streaming applications like Live TV, movie downloads, high speed data download on mobile phones with 3G services enabled. The users can also see each other on their mobile phone screens from now.
The new service features a data speed of 2 Mbps over the GPRS and EDGE enabled mobile networks. M Karunanidhi, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu and A Raja, the Union Minister for Communication and IT were present in the inaugural ceremony.
In Chennai, BSNL is the first mobile company to launch the service. The Chennai Telephones has also installed 25 stations (Node-Bs) across the city for the initial launch and these would be expanded fast.
The concerned authorities of the BSNL announced that the organisation was planning to invest over Rs 2,700 crore to provide 3G service in all important cities, commercially important towns and all the district headquarters.
Raja, the Communication minister also announced that BSNL would cover more than 700 cities with 3G services. After the plan works out, India would emerge as the second largest mobile telephone market after China.
More than 360 million mobile connections have already been provided and it would be double by 2012. The tele-density reached 34 per cent in January 2009 from 12.74 per cent in 2006.