‘‘The 1900 MHz band is not given to CDMA anywhere but in Korea and the US, and there is a steady shift away from that even there,’’ Mittal stated. ‘‘I think that in India the deal is done — we need to stay with the big, globally harmonised spectrum bands and keep 2GHz for W-CDMA,’’ he sad.

Of course, Reliance may still keep its CDMA business working for several years if not forever and another big CDMA operator still remains: Tata Teleservices. There is no reason yet why this business house should want to give up on the claim for 1900 MHz to provide 3G.

Mittal said that when 3G is finally launched in India, its impact will be tremendous, though that is not yet being sensed yet by anyone in India. ‘‘E-payments, e-governance and a range of e-services will transform the landscape. And we need it to happen,’’ he said.

On a recent controversy about cellular subscriptions, Mittal said that the debate was ‘‘unnecessary.’’ He said that it was unlikely that operators were padding up their numbers significantly, but even if they were, there was little to be gained from it.