4G threatens to spoil Govt's 3G party

Sunday August 23, 04:51 PM , Source: Financial Express

As India dithers over a policy on 3G mobile telephony, US' Motorola wants to test the next level (4G) that could pour cold water on the Government's plan to raise Rs 35,000 crore from selling radio frequency for the existing version.
Motorola, which has tested the new next generation technology, called Long-Term Evolution (LTE), is all set to start trial services of 4G that can offer 70 MB per second (Mbps) download speeds on a mobile phone by the end of this year.
The company is likely to approach the Department of Telecom (DoT) for trial spectrum, Subhendu Mohanty, a senior executive with Networks Mobility Business, Motorola India.
This development may, however, prompt operators planning to launch 3G telephony to wait and watch, thus spoiling the Government's plan to mop up a whopping Rs 35,000 crore from auction of 3G spectrum.
Asked whether Motorola is talking to operators, Mohanty said: We would like to have trial with the players but the technology can also be tested on our own systems.
In fact, the DoT is also understood to have prepared a concept paper on the 4G and the issue may be discussed at length in the days to come. Besides Motorola, other telecom vendors are also in the process of trials, industry sources said.