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Bangalore March 13 Delay in spectrum allocation is getting to be a real issue. India needs the policy to be ready soon to help it cope with mushrooming mobile subscriber base, according to 3G promoter Qualcomm.

"There is no justification for pushing the policy further away. Currently, networks are overloaded. 3G can help lift the spectrum crunch in urban areas by creating more capacity. It will supplement and help grow 2G networks," said Mr Parag Kar, Senior Director - Government Affairs (India & SAARC), Qualcomm India.

The business case viability of 3G compared to setting up a whole new network for wireless technologies such as WiMAX was also discussed. "There are 150 3G networks reaching 1 billion people across the world. Why are we lagging behind?" asked Dr Nikhil Jain, Chief Technical Advisor, Qualcomm India.

3G will also mean more services, and a whole new ecosystem of 3G enabled devices in the country. Already, there are over 180 EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimised, the CDMA equivalent of EDGE networks by GSM, but offering speeds of 3.1 MBps) devices by 30 vendors, and 74 3G-enabled laptop models from 10 vendors. Today, you can start buying data enabled cellphones from $130, said Dr Jain.

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