BSNL and MTNL launched their 3G services with a lot of pomp and show few months back. Being PSU’s. they got the spectrum allocation much before the private players. BSNL even roped in Deepika Padukone as its brand ambassador and did invest a lot on print as well as TV based advertising. The company even partnered with Nokia for offering its 3G services on Nokia mobile handsets. After all this, one would have expected BSNL’s 3G services to do good and rope in good number of 3G subscribers. But no, this is not the case at all with both BSNL and MTNL’s 3G base. The figures that were shared by the telecom authorities of India tell that BSNL’s 3G base is around 10,700 and that of MTNL is around 900, which is really pathetic. So what might be the reason of such low adoption of 3G services by these providers. One could be that, both these companies have very less market share as compared to the big guns like AirTel and Vodafone and most of their market lies in rural India, where only basic services are being sought after by a mobile user. The other could be that, not all the people in India are ready for 3G, they just need basic services and 3G usage and demand will slowly increase overtime, when there are more and more other service providers who give services that can be used by a mobile user who has 3G services enabled.

[Via NampBlog]