3G, for Bharti Airtel, will mostly be about video and driving data consumption. While the company has declined to comment on pricing, which will invariably determine consumption and revenues from 3G services, they did say that their existing SIM card's will be ready to switch over to 3G services: quite literally, as we suggested last year, the flipping of a switch, once a customer requests provisioning. But there remains the arduous task of attracting consumers to 3G services, or indeed, the Mobile Internet. Last Thursday, at a press conference where Airtel unveiled its new brand, and showcased some 3G services, we got to see a demo of what's in store. You can get a glimpse of what they're planning to launch at this WAP page, where they have a 3G Zone: - Video Talkies: a video version of Audio Cinema (or Audio Talkies). A full movie is crunched into 15 minutes of viewing, with popular dialogs, and and narration. Shotformats is providing the platform for Video Talkies for Airtel, and the content is multiple content partners - some from aggregators and others from direct deals, including from UTV New Media (which was the first to launch Audio Cinema, under TN Prabhu). Currently, Airtel is doing only movies, but they will look at doing TV show summaries. - Video TV: Airtel has partnered with Apalya for video content, with live streaming of TV channels, and also featuring archival content, including archives of TV shows. Airtel execs at the launch didn't confirm…
