Early next year, Nokia is planning to launch a 3G handset globally (including India) which will enable users to video-conference through these handsets.

Wipro Technologies is undertaking a major part of the software development for this project.

Under the recent agreement signed between Nokia and Wipro Technologies, a team of senior software engineers from Wipro has already joined the Nokia project in Germany, according to sources close to the development.

Earlier, Wipro had entered into an agreement with Nokia to provide smartphone development and integration services.

Nokia currently is the market leader in the Series 60 platform, wherein this integration service contract is applicable.

"Since Wipro's strength lies in innovation and exposure to both technology and business needs, the company has been selected by many global players to develop such next generation technology products," says an industry analyst.

Video-conferencing via mobiles has been in use in Japan, based on camera-equipped FOMA terminals and making use of the 3G-324M protocol for transmission over circuit-switched media. The data transfer rate under this protocol will be 64 kbps.

However, the advent of 3G mobile networks is expected to significantly improve the quality of this service, making it one of the key attractions for 3G.

According to industry reports, the conferencing market is growing at a rapid rate of 37 per cent per year and is expected to reach $5.6 billion by 2007.