Government of India has ordered country’s largest cellular player Bharti Airtel to stop providing 3G services in Kolkata, Maharastra, Uttar Pradesh East, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Haryana and slapped with Rs 350 crore penalty.Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular partnered to form an alliance to offer pan India 3G services, though none of them has pan India 3G spectrum. DoT tried to close this deal by the three telcos, but they didn’t follow the order rather questioned it.
Airtel had to move to Delhi High Court yesterday to get a stay order; the case hearing is on 18th. If Airtel can not get a relief order, it has to shut down 3G services in those 7 circles with immediate effect.
Similar orders are going to be landed on other partners of Airtel i.e. Vodafone India and Idea Cellular.
With the 3G roaming being cancelled, only operators providing high speed internet on pan India basis remain Reliance Communications (over CDMA EvDO) and Reliance Jio Infocomm (yet to launch 4G services).
Then there will not be separate 2G and 3G data packs. There will be only internet packs which will be common for both 2G and 3G.
You will get 3G speed wherever 3G network is avaialble and everywhere else you will get 2G speed.
Already Airtel is providing 3G speed for 2G packs at many areas as a testing of this move.
Some customers have reported that Vodafone and Idea is also providing the same.
There are customers who received messages from operators that they can enjoy 3g speeds at no extra costs.
It was Reliance who launched 3G packs at low rates and later BSNL also launched unified data packs which provide 3G speed.
It is obvious that other operators will also be following their move inorder not to lose customers.
This move is really useful for all 3G customers and to all users who have access to 3G network.
But it is not good for 2G users who have devices which support only 2G and who are in areas where 3G coverage is not available. They will have to pay more to use the 2G services.
Already in the case of BSNL now 2G alone users are forced to pay more.
But overall this move is a positive one and this may be the beginning of 3G revolution in India.
More people will become interested to adopt 3G service.
Ericsson and Netgear have collaborated to launch a new 3G/Wi-Fi router in the form of the Netgear MBRN3300. This wireless router can use an internal 3G modem, including HSPA+ at roughly 20Mbps, and share the link through either 802.11n Wi-Fi or through four 100Mbps Ethernet ports. The device is ideal for use as a modem for homes where regular cable, DSL or fiber isn’t available, or for completely mobile local networks. The Netgear MBRN3300 supports Windows PC, Macintosh, and virtually all Ethernet devices. Too bad, there is no info on pricing or availability so far.
The Nokia Booklet 3G will come with an Intel Atom Z530 1.6GHz processor, 1GB of DDR2 533 MHz RAM, 120GB 1.8 inch 4200 RPM SATA hard drive with 8MB of cache, 10.1 inch LCD display with a resolution of 1280 x 720,802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and 16 cell battery, which according to Nokia will give you up to 12 hours of usage.
