About 31 percent of people in India, or about 366 million, had access to improved sanitation in 2008, while some 545 million cell phones are connected to networks in the country, according to a recent UN report. The mobile networks in India are set for an upgrade to 3G service, which many healthcare companies plan to leverage to offer advanced mHealth services in the country, which already has a $35 billion healthcare sector. India's mHealth services to date have largely been focused on spreading awareness and collecting data, but 3G services will help doctors to view images like ECGs and x-rays from remote locations, according to a report in the Financial Express.

“Mobile healthcare can usher in the next revolution in the healthcare industry. Bandwidth won’t be a constraint anymore,” Vishal Bali, CEO, Fortis Hospitals, told India's Financial Express. The president of the Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation (ATNF) Dr. K Ganapathy said that 3G will catalyze mobile health services in India. The group will adopt the slogan: "Connecting the unconnected," Ganapathy said.

On a somewhat unrelated note, the Financial Express had an interesting tidbit on a service launch... While it's not a 3G service by any means -- it's all text messages -- Text4Baby may soon make its debut in India, according to Paul Meyer, CEO of US-based mobile technology firm Voxiva, which recently launched Text4Baby in the US. (Flashback: Esther Dyson is working to bring Text4Baby to Russia.)

Read more from this article from the Financial Express