Responding to questions on whether it makes more sense for Indian companies to move straight from the second to third generation stage, without going through the intermediate 2.5 generation stage where GSM is concerned, Biduad clearly stated that moving from 2G to 3G directly would involve an investment which was in the range of about 60 per cent of the original investment itself, so it was a far more practical solution to go via 2.5G which would prove more cost effective. Speaking to eFE, Bidaud further stated that expectation from WAP had been set very high, resulting in a lot of negative feedback about the service, which is also slowing down development in the space. However, as far as wireless service itself is concerned Bidaud said that he was very confident about its future.

Reflecting on the progression of wireless services in the Asian region, Bidaud said that Japan was leading in the Wireless Internet space, where consumers were very fast to adopt the technology, but curiously the Japanese havenot taken as well as their Asian counterparts to the wired Internet. Bidaud also cited the case of Korea which has seen a rapid adoption of both the wired and wireless Internet.

"We see a similar progression in India," says Bidaud, we expect the wired Internet to catch on fast given the telecom deregulations that are underway and at the same time we expect to see a fast growth in wireless as well - a progression similar to what we've seen in Korea," he adds. Finally Bidaud stressed that the government had to play a proactive role if the "digital divide" in India was to be minimised. "There is a tendency for investments to get concentrated in the urban areas where wireless is concerned, the government will have to give incentives to operators to work in the non urban areas," he concluded.