BSNL, Bharti, Hutch get spectrum for 3G trials

The dry-run for the roll-out of 3G mobile services is ready to take off as the government has provided low-power spectrum to GSM players BSNL, MTNL, Bharti and Hutch on a non- commercial basis.

The trial spectrum has been given for one month, and is 1/1000 of the actual 3G spectrum capability. It has to be used in a closed campus to see inter-operability of the interface with the existing system and is only for technical demonstration, a Department of Telecommunications (DoT) official said.

As far as CDMA players are concerned, Tata Teleservices had sought 3G trial spectrum but did not get the nod from DoT. On Reliance Communications, the official said their case could not be considered as they had sought spectrum on 1900 Mhz band, which did not conform to the National Frequency Allocation Plan (NFAP) for their CDMA-based 3G trials.