Till date, we spent money on buying expensive 3G phones thinking that it will soon be launched but we were always let down. Finally yesterday, 3G services saw light of the day in India withIndian government’s Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) launched the country’s first 3G services which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Minister for Communications and IT, A. Raja.

The launch took place at the India Telecom 2008 where the 3G connectivity was introduced by MTNL and Dr. Manmohan Singh made the country’s first video call.

RSP Sinha, chairman and managing director, MTNL said, “We believe in providing the latest technology and services to our customers and are proud to be the first telecom services provider in India to launch the 3G service. We are working closely with technology partners like Motorola to providea suite of advanced mobile applications that are not being offered by any other existing carriers. We believe these services will create a paradigm shift in the mobile experience of the Indian consumer.”

With this launch India has come to the global forefront of countries providing 3G connectivity. The 3G services will now equip Indians with abilities to carry out high speed data transfers, video streaming and conferencing, mobile TV, video mobile surveillance and access mobile Internet broadband. 3G will be made available to the metro cities of New Delhi and Mumbai initially.

As of now, only government owned BSNL and MTNL will offer 3G service by 2009. Licenses to the private players are yet to be auctioned, which will reportedly take place by the end of January 2009.