For sale: Ericsson 3Gs for $100

You can soon buy an Ericsson third generation mobile phones for $100 (about Rs 4,500) when the Swedish telecom major rolls out the 3G service.

The company is working with various telecom operators to trial run 3G services. Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg said today that mobile broadband using 3G technologies is the next big revolution and India is where the action is.

"We are in the business of supplying infrastructure and we see a great potential here as every operator is working in the direction (3G). We see tremendous growth in data traffic in India," he said.

A cellphone is not simply a phone today - it is a radio, camera and even an office. In the future, more and more people will experience internet by handsets." he said.

Svanberg said : "The US $ 100 3G phone has become a reality now. We are already conducting 3G trials with various telecom operators in the country already".

When asked about BSNL's mega 45 million line GSM tender, in which Ericsson emerged the lowest bidder, getting into legal wrangle after US telecom giant Motorola challenged the process in the Delhi High Court, Carl-Henric said: "Faster the solution the better it is. Delay is not positive for BSNL." PTI said.

The government has declared 2007 as the year of broadband and has set a target of 10 million broadband subscribers by 2007 from the curent 2 million.

He added that Sony Ericsson-its joint venture mobile phone company has a nine per cent market share in the country. "Globally our market share is 9.1 per cent and we also have about the same market share in India" he added.

The company is also looking at expanding its business in India. "We will invest $ 100 million every year for the next five years but we can increase the invest depending on the growth of the industry," Mats Granryd, MD India and Sri Lanka Ericsson said.

He said that the Indian telecom industry has been growing at 100 per cent and the company was looking at growth more than the industry growth rate. The company will also increase the head count in our two R&D centres in Gurgaon and Chennai from the current 150, he added.

Meanwhile, Bharti Airtel has said that it will invest more than $ 2 billion for the for the financial year 2006-07. Of these, about two-third will be used for wireless segment and expanding its coverage in new areas.

"Last year we invested $ 2 billion. This year the investment will be more than $ 2 billion. The investment will come from internal generation (accruals)," joint Managing director and chief financial officer of Bharti Airtel said.