Both Bharti Airtel and Vodafone are set to start selling the communications later this week, but there's no 3G network to run it on. Apparently, there's a dispute between the Indian federal finance and telecommunications ministries over whether Evolution-Data Optimized (EVDO) licenses can be awarded according to subscriber numbers in any given region as suggested, notes IT Wire. The Indian Telecom Regulatory Authority seems adamant that current CDMA operators cannot be awarded licenses in this manner.
According to IT Wire, analysts are now reporting that this latest regulatory snafu could mean that 3G won't arrive in India until well into 2009 "at the very earliest." Even then, rollout issues mean that it would be restricted to as few as one in five users for the next four years.
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