3G Auction now on Move: 3G Coverage in India

3G Auction now on Move: 3G Coverage in India



3G services started long time back in India by BSNL and MTNL. But after a long period they have 3G coverage covering only a few areas that too in a few major cities only. The bigger private players Vodafone, Airtel, Idea do not have the rights yet. Bharti Airtel and other player including Qualcomm have submitted bid for the 3G spectrum in India for the auctions which start on April 9th. Thousands of Indians have smartphones and other phones capable of running on 3G networks and they have been waiting patiently to use all the goodness that 3G can bring including video calling, mobile TV and high speed Internet access on mobiles. 

The time now when world is moving on to 3.5G and 4G networks, the answer to why India is yet to see a widespread adoption of 3G is beyond the scope of this article. Here, we just highlight the current state of 3G in India and some data plans offered by BSNL and MTNL. Only two providers, BSNL and MTNL offer 3G services and plans offered by BSNL are slightly cheaper than those of MTNL. In addition to their plans being more flexible, BSNL seems to have better coverage across India. In the last one year, they have made significant progress in increasing their coverage all across India. Starting with cities in the north, they have moved down south and have covered a few cities in Andhra Pradesh and most recently in Kerala.

Operator BSNL offers new 3G prepaid connections at just Rs.59. After the SIM is activated, the customer has to recharge the SIM to be able to use it. The first recharge coupon costs Rs. 120 inclusive of tax. New customers will get free data usage of 25MB. The prepaid plan from BSNL is called the general 120 plan and has video calling at Rs. 0.70 per minute for local calls and Rs.1.00 per minute for STD video calls. The data rate is Rs.0.01 per 10KB. Postpaid plans from BSNL start with one that costs a minimum of Rs.249 per month and go up to one that costs Rs.2499 per month.

If you do not plan to use 3G services extensively, a plan for Rs.399 per month comes with 1GB of data transfer after which each additional MB is Rs.0.50. Those who see themselves using 3G data services to their full extent can choose the plan that costs Rs.2499 per month and has no limit on the amount of data transferred. BSNL also has a few data topup plans that can be used after the usage limit has been reached. Priced at Rs.109, Rs.225, Rs.260 and Rs.325, these have no validity but add 100MB, 300MB, 500MB and 1GB to the data limit.