International 3G Mobile Calling
Bharti Airtel, India's biggest telecom provider, has just launched an international video calling feature for 3G mobile customers in India. The launch coincides with a demand by the government to offer a mechanism for monitoring and interception of real-time video calls.
Airtel 3G users will now be able to speak face-to-face with family and friends abroad for the first time in over a year. The government had banned video calling in 2010 based on security concerns, but the ban has been lifted as carriers promised to develop video call interception capability. The problem before was that security agencies weren't able to intercept video calls in real time, but now they have addressed that issue. Airtel plans to charge rates of vidoe calls to the US, Bangladesh and Canada of Rs 14 per minute, while they will charge Rs 20 per minute for calls to UAE, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Oman.