Telecom: India eyes 4G service launch next year

4G mobile services will allow users to watch high-definition video and download content at a much faster rate.

NEW DELHI: India aims to launch fourth-generation (4G) mobile services next year that will allow users to watch high-definition video and download content at a much faster rate, a minister said. 4G technology holds the promise of Internet speeds up to 10 times faster than typical third-generation networks. “We should be ready to launch 4G... in the later half of 2012,” Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said late Friday, according to the Press Trust of India. Sibal’s comments come as telecom operators are rolling out 3G mobile services after winning spectrum in a fiercely contested auction in 2010. Telecom and Internet services providers paid a combined nearly $23 billion to the government for bandwidth to offer 3G telephone and broadband wireless Internet services.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2011.