New Delhi, Sep 2 - Bharti Airtel, the country's largest telecom operator in terms of subscribers, Wednesday said it will launch third generation (3G) mobile telephony services by October 2010.

'If everything goes well on time with regard to spectrum auction, by February or March we should receive spectrum allocation,' Bharti Airtel chief executive Manoj Kohli told reporters on the sidelines of a telecom conference here.

'By next Diwali (2010), we will commercially launch 3G services in India,' he added.

The government last week fixed the base price for 3G radio waves at Rs.3,500 crore, down from the previous Rs.4,040 crore.

The government is hopeful of completing the auction within 90 days of the announcement of the base price and of earning about Rs.25,000 crore from the auction of 3G and WiMax spectrum.