Representatives from mobile operators in China and India – the world’s two largest mobile markets – yesterday provided delegates at the GSMA Mobile World Congress with insights into their respective 3G rollouts. Zhang Fan, CTO at China Unicom, which received a Chinese 3G license based on WCDMA last month, said the operator’s first goal was to closely integrate its 2G and 3G networks. He noted that, following the sale of its CDMA network to rival China Telecom last year, Unicom has focused on improving the quality of its GSM-based 2G network. He said the operator is aiming for seamless interoperability between the two network generations, meaning its 2G subscribers do not need to switch SIMs to access 3G. “Some operators try to distinguish between 2G and 3G, but we don’t want to talk to our customers about technology,” Zhang said. 

Meanwhile, it was a less encouraging update from India. Rajat Mukarji, chief corporate affairs officer at Idea Cellular, told delegates that India’s 3G auctions – originally scheduled to begin last month – have been delayed indefinitely. He said the delay had been caused by issues around the reserve price and the availability of spectrum that is being refarmed from the Indian military. “We don’t see anything happening in the next four to six months,” Mukarji admitted. However, he said he was “bullish” about the success of Indian 3G longer term, noting that 3G services will allow many Indians to connect to the Internet for the first time. “The opportunity for 3G broadband in India will be absolutely huge,” he concluded, adding that mobile broadband should overtake fixed broadband in India by 2010.