14 DAY TRIAL // Ericsson has recently announced an update to the contract the company signed back in September 2007 with India's BSNL, stating that it achieved the biggest simultaneous launch of 3G services to date in the country. Ericsson will deploy 3G services over 11 major cities in India.
BSNL announced that its rollout strategy also included the launch of 3G services using WCDMA/HSPA technology over more than 700 cities in the first phase of the deployment. According to the announcement, Ericsson is a strategic partner for BSNL for the rollout of 3G in over 400 of the aforementioned cities.
Kuldeep Goyal, chairman and managing director of BSNL, said at the launch: “Today is a significant day for BSNL. The commercial launch of 3G services represents a major milestone in our journey of realizing 3G services for the country and our customers. Ericsson's leading position and professional services capabilities have allowed us to make available a range of premium services, including rich voice, data and video services in record time.”
Kuldeep Goyal also stated that the wide deployment of the 3G network is also meant to help propel telecom and broadband growth over the country. At the same time, the rollout is also expected to help the company meet its target of 20 million broadband subscribers in India by 2010.
The launch of the 3G network will also allow the carrier to offer high-quality voice services as well as high-speed data and video services with speeds of up to 2 Mbps. Certain applications will be provided with immediate effect, including video telephony, mobile broadband, mobile TV and video on demand. Other services, such as music downloads, video tones, instant messaging, online gaming or bill payment, as well as a lot of other services are expected to become available in the near future.