india's Public telecom operator bsnl plans to launch its 3G services in a full fledged manner from April 2009. The private operators like airtel,reliance and Vodafone are expected to enter market in early 2010 after the bidding process.BSNL also launched its 3G services yesterday in 10 major cities starting with chennai.The National operator expects atleast 10% of its total subscribers to adapt 3G services.
3G data plans start from Rs 250 (5 $ us) . This also is a big achievement by the public operator which entered mobile market in 2002 and overtook all the private operators within few years.
Handset major nokia is expected to launch its N97 in the same period. Already Nokia holds more than 70% market share in India which is one of its key markets. Incidently Indians in cities buy more smartphones compared to couterparts in US.