3G to be a complete game-changer

CHANDIGARH, INDIA: The fifth session of e-Revolution was a panel discussion on 'The 3G Impact'. The discussion was moderated by Manish Kasliwal - Head Strategic Marketing, L&T Infotech, and among the panelists were Aditya Gupta - COO Punjab, Tata Teleservices; Sachin Singhal - GM, One97; Naresh Sharma- General Manager, BSNL and Rajat Mukarji - chief corporate Affairs officer, Idea Cellular.

The panelists largely pondered on what 3G means for consumers and operators, and how 3G will impact applications such as m-banking, m-commerce, and m-governance. “3G will act as a driving force for the benefit of e-governance to reach the masses,” said Sharma as he informed that the government is focusing a lot on data services.

Stressing on the important role that the government has to play in this regard, he said “The policy makers need to ensure connectivity throughout the country and set more number of towers to help spread 3G.”

He added that 3G will supplement the efforts of the services which broadband offers at present and will save a lot of time and money which is spent in setting up wired broadband networks.

Answering to the question, whether consumers will have to pay huge to avail 3G services, Sharma further assured that the prices for voice services will remain the same.

“However, with the benefits of advanced technology, higher bandwidth, ease of use and the rich media experience, there will certainly be an added cost which the consumers should be expectant of,” said Gupta. He also informed that as of now, there are no such device or application which can convert a 2G phone to 3G and a basic 3G handset will cost Rs15, 000 upwards.

In a very confident and futuristic remark, Mukherji said, “3G will be a complete game-changer”. He added that with the introduction of 3G, the functioning of operators will see a large change. “Operators will now have to become sellers of applications and not just minutes; handlers of data-centric network and not just voice,” he said.

Agreeing to this Kasliwal further mentioned that if 3G has to be successful, there has to be many more innovations, and applications has to be designed to cater to the interests of people of specific regions. Adding to this Singhal said, “Video content and gaming will be the two killer apps in 3G.”

Overall, the panelists came to a conclusion that 3G will have a considerable impact on people in the years to come, offering them rich-media experience and will give an extra leap for Internet to reach people faster and with much ease.