BANGALORE, INDIA: World over, 3G telecom services are redefining the telecom experience for millions of subscribers. According to industry estimates 3G-subscriber base is expected to reach a whopping figure of over 540 million in 2010. This is opening up newer vistas for MVAS sector.

Pankaj Sethi, president- corporate services- VAS, TTSL, shares a few thoughts on the growing VAS market in India, in an interview with CIOL:

Excerpts:

CIOL: How do you plan to tap the 3G environment in India?
Pankaj Sethi: The early uptake on 3G in Europe was low, with high device costs and a high priced service. But this has grown since. In India 3G release will benefit from affordable devices and established scale volumes.

3G will enable operators to offer lot of value added services such as video calling, video streaming, music downloads and efficient mobile navigation etc. 3G also promises higher speed Internet and corporate data base connectivity for mobile access on laptops and PDAs.

The government has recently announced the 3G guidelines and identified bands for spectrum allocation through auction. We will participate in the auction process as and when the spectrum is available in identified bands and the government calls for the bid.

Our experience with better data services on CDMA, leave us better prepared to leverage 3G.

CIOL:  Rural market is the most untapped market as far as Internet is concerned due to the lack of vernacular service. Any regional service in the offing?
PS: The issue of language is applicable to all markets, not just rural. We already provide news and applications in 11 languages on common CDMA mobile phones. TTSL also has a vibrant IVR service in languages. These will use the language capability to target rural customers with relevant content.