Government-owned telecom major, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) started a new prepaid scheme for its third generation (3G) services wherein users will be offered lifetime validity for Rs 300.

Users will be offered local video calls at Rs 1.8/minute and data download at Rs 3/MB. In addition to this, top-up coupons offering free data downloads and free video calling will also be made available to the users.
 
The company, which operates in Delhi and Mumbai, is planning to attract up to 3 lakh users for its 3G mobile services in the first year of its launch.
 
Speaking on this, R S P Sinha (CMD, MTNL) said, “In the first year of operations, we want between 200,000 and 300,000 customers for our 3G services.”

However, the company at present has only about 400 subscribers for its 3G services.

It should be noted here that the company was the first company in the country to start its 3G services in December last year, after the government gave state-owned operators 3G spectrum ahead of private operators, who are still waiting for the auction of 3G spectrum to start their operations in this space.

Newly appointed Telecom Minister Andimuthu Raja had also made it clear that the government will auction third-generation wireless radio (3G) spectrum by the end of this year. The Telecom Ministry was to auction the 3G telecommunications spectrum in January, but due to some reasons it could not happened.

3G services let voice, data and video to be transmitted at high speeds to wireless devices.