By IANS
New Delhi : The third generation (3G) mobile telephony service policy to enable faster data transfer will be announced by the end of this month, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) Secretary D.S. Mathur said here Wednesday.
No decision had been taken on allowing foreign players to bid for the 3G space, Mathur told reporters here at an annual telecom seminar organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
On the issue of allocating additional spectrum, which remains the biggest challenge for the growth of Indian telecom service providers, Mathur indicated that India's defence services were likely to release 42 mega hertz of spectrum by July.
While elaborating India's growth story in the telecom sector, the official emphasised on the fact that leading telecom companies were now increasingly shifting their focus on rural areas.
"We currently have 30 million users in the rural area, and we hope to take it to 150 million soon. We wish to make mobile service in rural areas as ubiquitous as in urban areas," Mathur said.
He also indicated that the government was building about 8,000 towers for effective mobile telephony service in remote villages and the project was likely to be completed by the end of this year.
According to Nripendra Misra, chairperson, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the government would soon open bids for rolling out network in rural areas and it may also give incentives to companies able to do that.
Misra also called for bringing in rationalisation in roaming tariffs among SAARC countries.