Thaindian News

New Delhi, Sep 1 (IANS) Swedish telecom equipment manufacturer Ericsson Thursday said that the fourth generation (4G) services for wireless communication will not effect the existing 3G services and the two will grow parallelly in the country.

“4G will complement 3G with its data services. We are optimistic 4G will be a big market in India. In most cases, 3G and 4G would go parallelly,” Mikael Back, vice president of product and portfolio management, business unit networks, Ericsson AB, told IANS.

Ericsson is working with many players in India on long term evolution (LTE) technology. The company has already conducted field trials of 4G LTE mobile technology with Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and Qualcomm and is in talks with other players as well.

LTE is the global standard for the fourth generation of mobile broadband and is being supported by all major players in India. LTE is expected to transform the mobile-broadband user experience by providing the ultra-high data speeds needed for services such as internet TV, mobile video-blogging, online video games and the mobile office environment.

RIL won pan-India broadband wireless access (BWA) licence in the BWA spectrum auction last year, while Qualcomm acquired BWA licenses in four circles including Mumbai and Delhi. Aircel, Bharti, Tikona and Augre also won BWA licenses in select circles.

“The market in India is very good and we will be extremely strong,” said Back.

Talking about the pricing of LTE devices, Back said that unlike 3G devices, LTE devices will be expensive in the initial phase, but prices will slide once there is a growth in demand.

The roll out of 3G services in India begun last year in a phased manner. However, the service has so far garnered lukewarm response from the price sensitive Indian market.