Ten years after the birth of 3G, it’s finally here. Well, almost. You have a choice of dozens of inexpensive 3G phones. You can even buy a 3G service today, in parts of India. While the state-run BSNL and MTNL have been dabbling in 3G since last year, they haven’t made big inroads despite aggressive pricing, partly due to spotty coverage. But there are also some 3G or near-3G options if you’re looking for fast data from CDMA operators. Now, with the finance ministry finally giving the green signal, the auction of spectrum for 3G—and the roll-out of services by Airtel, Reliance and other private players—is round the corner.
Why 3G?
All mobile phones make voice calls well but most struggle with data, especially the heavy stuff—file downloads, big emails, graphics, video. That’s where 3G comes in. A 3G phone will do file or video downloads much faster than your current mobile phone.
3G, or third generation, is a group of technologies that allows much faster speeds than the older GSM mobile phone system we mostly use today, informally called 2G. It isn’t one standard, but a family of technologies that allow fast wireless connections over a large area, including CDMA2000 (the 3G variant of CDMA), UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system) and others, with Wimax (worldwide interoperability for microwave access) added most recently, two years ago. They all allow fast wireless connections over a large area.
What do you need?
Just a compatible phone, and a subscription to a 3G service. Many modern phones—especially above Rs10,000—are 3G-ready. But the service isn’t so easy to find. The government-run BSNL and MTNL run 3G services, which is limited to some areas. For instance, I use an MTNL 3G modem on my laptop, but it does not work at 3G speeds in Gurgaon and in most of Delhi—it just works at the same low speeds my old data card runs at. But this should change when telephone companies such as Airtel start selling 3G services later this year.
For now, though, if you need fast data access on the go, you can buy high-speed data cards or plug-in USB modems from Reliance and Tata Indicom. They don’t like to call them 3G so as not to upset the government, which hasn’t allowed private players to offer 3G services yet. So they use names such as Photon+, and offer “up to 3 Mbps” download speeds. But they’re 3G all right. They can’t sell it for phone handsets yet, though—just for data cards.
What you can do with it
Once you have a 3G phone and service, you can, for starters, use data services together with voice calls (with your old GSM services, you can’t do both at the same time: When you make a call, your data connection is put on hold, and email downloads and other data activity suspended while your call is on). And 3G is fast enough for IP telephony, so you can make cheap long-distance calls.