Honest 836 Report post Posted October 10, 2008 TN to wait till January for 3G mobile services Economic Times l 11 Oct l Chennai While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will launch 3G services in New Delhi this December, Tamil Nadu will have to wait a month more for the same. Union minister of communication and IT A Raja said on Friday TN chief minister M Karunanidhi would launch 3G services in January next year during Pongal. About the prices expected for the global auction, Mr Raja said that he was not sure if the auction would fetch the expected price due to the global economic crisis. It was earlier reported that the finance ministry hoped to earn at least Rs 40,000 crore by selling spectrum for 3G mobile services. The department of telecom also announced recently that UK-based NM Rothschild to conduct the global auction. BSNL and MTNL have already been allotted spectrum for the 3G roll out. On not going for an auction in 2G services, Raja said he was only following the National Telecom Policy, 1999, and his predecessors in the ministry who followed the policy of first-cum-first-serve basis. He cited the example of his predecessor Dayanidhi Maran, who gave license to 24 companies and spectrum to 12 companies following the same procedure. The government has earned Rs 40,000 crore in the past 40 months due to the revenue sharing basis model as license fee and spectrum charge. Mr Raja said he expects the revenue to go up as more players join, increasing the competition. About talks of bias towards Swan Telecom, Mr Raja said that his ministry had followed the processes transparently and one could file an RTI application to get further details. “Swan Telecom was also rejected in a few of the telecom circles in Bihar and Jammu & Kashmir. I am open to any enquiry,” Mr Raja added. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
