India is all set to move on from 3G to 4G, technically known as Long Term Evolution in mobile broadband, leading industry and technology experts said at LTE India 2011 international conference organized by Bharat Exhibitions today.

“With mass adoption, lowest cost per bit, highest capacity, best user experience and a true global standard, the world is stepping into 4G expecting 380 million LTE subscribers and 80 plus LTE networks by 2015” said Mr. Sujit Bakre, Nokia Siemens Networks head of 4G business development.

“India could lead LTE-TD broadband technology developments” Mr. Mallikarjuna Rao, chief technology officer of Aircel said at the conference. The reason: “lot of competence in this area is returning to India from outside”. DOT, Ministry of Communications & IT, advisor (technology) Shri J. Gopal was guest of honour at the international conference, second one in the last two years on this latest development in mobile phone broadband technology.

Bharti Airtel VP for networks Mr. Puneet Garg put 2012 as the year of “next step towards a broadband wireless revolution using LTE” that “will change the way people connect to communicate” Bharti Airtel was ready for this change over, he said.

LTE or 4G would be a smooth transition using core set up of the 2G/3G networks, several experts emphasized at the conference, a transition “dramatically matured”. Already with globally 18 launches with 208 network commitments, the 100 Megabits per second LTE service was described by several experts and operator executives as providing a “unique consumer experience”. Worldwide trials had already started in 2010.

In China large scale trials had been started by China Mobile. In India Qualcomm and Huawei had set up a trial network in Hyderabad. “It is an opportunity for India to telescope change but the technology would support only four or five operators provided they have a pan India reach” according to Mr. Mallikarjuna Rao.

Making it truly global platform to conduct business, global majors engaged in wireless broadband technology – Nokia Siemens Networks, Qualcomm, ZTE, Huawei, Samsung, Alcatel-Lucent, Tekelec, Verint Systems, DragonWave HFCL & Tellabs participated in the event & shared their plans for India

Key executives from telecom operators like Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Aircel, BSNL, MTNL, Reliance Communications, TATA Teleservices, Sistema Shyam, Etisalat, Videocon Telecommunications and Uninor had attended the conference. 

Airtel and Aircel, Leading Telecom service providers have launched the Apple iPhone 4 with a bundled package of two-year. The two operators have launched both the 16 GB and 32 GB versions of the phone (16 GB for Rs 34,500 and 32 GB for Rs 40,900), and are offering tariff plans and Other freebies like SMS, data downloads , which will allow a sizeable waiver on the monthly tariff plans.

Shashi Arora, CEO, Airtel- Mobility (Upper North), said: “The market is witnessing an increasing demand for devices that deliver the ultimate user experience — through a good user interface, rich feature capabilities and innovative applications,” he added.

Aircel, too, is looking at wooing a large number of hi end customers through its bundled offer with iPhone. Gurmeet Makkar, business head, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, said that they were expecting a good response from this launch. “We are also offering a 100 per cent return on the cost of buying the handset, by giving freebies over two years. For the phone that costs Rs 40,900, we are giving freebies and waiver on monthly rental worth Rs 41,090 over two years,” he said.

Samsung mobiles has announced the launch of Samsung Infuse 4G in the US with AT&T. The company announced that Infuse 4G would be available starting May 15 for $199.99 with a two-year contract. The company unveiled Infuse at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in January, however, there not much heard about the smartphone after that.

Samsung Infuse is a stunning smartphone that comes with a 4.5-inch super AMOLED Plus display and runs on 1.2GHz processor. The device has an 8-megapixel rear camera capable of recording 720p HD video and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera for video calls. The smartphone is based on Android 2.2.1 and comes with TouchWiz overlay. At 8.9mm at its thinnest point, Infuse 4G is claimed to be the thinnest 4G smartphone available.





Features and Specifications of Samsung Infuse 4G:

GSM 850/900/1800/1900
UMTS 850/1900/2100
4G: HSDPA CAT 14 and HSUPA CAT 6
Android 2.2 OS
8.9 mm to 9.24mm thin
1.2 GHz processor
4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus screen
8-megapixel rear camera with HD 720p video camera
1.3-megapixel front facing camera
Virtual QWERTY keyboard
Expandable memory up to 32GB with microSD card
Samsung Media Hub, U-verse Mobile, U-verse Live TV, and Angry Birds