China Mobile’s Q1 net income increased 5.2 percent year- over-year to $3.7 billion, helped by subscriber growth, it said Monday. But the result is the weakest Q1 profit growth in five years. The company acknowledged the impact of the economic downturn and rising competition as the wireless penetration rate matures in the country. Net subscriber growth totaled 19.91 million, compared to 21.14 million in Q4 2008. New subscribers were mainly low-end users, the company said. The company had a total of 477.16 million subscribers as of March 31.
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The U.K.’s copyright law is the most unfavorable to consumers of 16 countries reviewed, Consumers International said Wednesday. It also looked at IP legislation and enforcement practices in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Spain, Thailand and the U.S. Britain was “the worst, by far” on balancing the interests of consumers and copyright owners, outdoing the emerging economies of Thailand and Argentina to last place, the group said. Topping the list were India, South Korea and China, in “odd company” with the U.S. at fourth place, it said. The U.S. regularly criticizes those three Asian countries as failing to protect IP but applies a double standard to its own copyright system, the organization said. It said it rated as the worst national systems those that don’t take advantage of pro-consumer flexibilities in international law. No country surveyed took enough account of consumer interests concerning freedom of access to and use of content through blogs, online video-sharing, wiki entries and other avenues; freedom to share and transfer information and entertainment through public domain and freely licensed materials; and enforcement, the group said. But “best practices” are emerging, it said. Spain requires holders of works covered by technical protection measures to give consumers a way to enjoy them for legal purposes, the group said. The U.S. supports consumer interests through its broad “fair use” exception to copyright, and Australia has legalized shifting across time, space and format, it said. Consumers International called its survey a response to the USTR Special 301 report, which it said grades countries on how closely they follow U.S. standards of IP protection and enforcement regardless of the interests of consumers or of national circumstances. The group said it hopes the research will balance the “contention of multinational rightsholders” that “anything less than the highest levels of copyright protection is to be associated with piracy and criminality.” The U.K.’s dismal standing is ironic for the country that developed copyright law, said Consumer Focus and the Open Rights Group. Millions of Britons are “needlessly criminalized” by outdated IP laws that, for instance, forbid ripping a CD onto a personal computer or iPod, they said. The groups asked the government to introduce a broad fair-use exception that could adapt to new technology. They said they don’t condone piracy, but file-sharing is the “inevitable consequence” of the digital market’s failing to meet consumer demand and needs. A fair-use exception would also cover user-generated content where material is reworked for new, noncommercial purposes, they said. The content has an increasingly high social value for the “YouTube generation,” they added.
China’s three major telecom operators announced 3G network construction plans at the Mobile Communication Industry Summit Forum, the companies said. China Unicom aims to achieve a seamless switch between 3G and 2G networks. The 2G network, which has been upgraded, will be used for traditional voice business. As for the 3G network, all base stations will be deployed with high-speed downlink access and high-speed uplink access, with downlink speeds up to 14.4 Mbps and uplink speeds up to 5.76 Mbps. China Telecom’s investment in base stations will leap 80 percent by the end of July 2009. China Mobile plans to build 140,000 TD-SCDMA base stations in 2009-2011. The TD-SCDMA network is expected to cover 70 percent of the country at the end of 2009 and cover all Chinese cities at the end of 2011. The network vendors include ZTE, Huawei, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens.
LOS ANGELES Stronger legislation and enforcement have failed to curb global piracy, said Timothy Trainor of the Global Intellectual Property Strategy Center. Testifying Monday in Los Angeles before a special session of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Trainor urged the committee to provide more enforcement resources, including additional officers in the field to try and combat the problem.
Rising termination rates, regulatory transparency and equipment trade topped concerns in an annual review of U.S. international telecom trade agreements, the U.S. Trade Representative said. The review is based on public comments filed by interested parties. Eight companies and trade associations and two foreign governments commented or replied to comments.
Moving toward a less fragmented mobile market is a trend that will benefit wireless operators and content and application providers, content vendors said. They called for more openness for applications. Verizon Wireless got the message: It became a member of the Joint Innovation Lab, an applications effort aimed mostly at creating a standardized widget platform, the carrier’s parent company, Vodafone Group, said Wednesday.
Denmark placed first, Sweden second and the U.S. third in the World Economic Forum’s annual report on how 134 economies take advantage of technology for competitiveness and development. China gained 11 spots to 46th, beating Russia, India and Brazil for the first time, the report said. Broadband access everywhere is crucial to global prosperity, John Chambers, Cisco Systems’ CEO, said in the report. Barbados, Chile and Puerto Rico placed highest in rankings of Latin American and Caribbean countries. Countries in sub- Saharan Africa still lag, the report said.
Satellite CEOs hope the Obama administration will reexamine International Traffic in Arms Regulations, they said at the Satellite 2009 convention in Washington. They said America manufacturers risk a diminished presence in the commercial market unless the matter is taken care of. “ITAR has hurt American manufacturers,” Intelsat CEO David McGlade said. “There are ITAR-free space craft being launched in other countries and it means Americans don’t get to participate at all in that.” Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg agreed: “Americans have a great product, but they are not really represented in the commercial market.”
Greater U.S. government involvement in China’s high technology and telecom industry were sought by witnesses at a hearing Tuesday of the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission. The president’s science adviser needs to be given “real stature” and the Office of Science and Technology Policy should be strengthened, including through the addition of people familiar with Chinese science and technology trends, said Richard Suttmeier, a retired University of Oregon professor. There’s also a need for a high-level council on U.S.-China science and technology relations that would include representatives of business, universities, nonprofits and governments, he said. Suttmeier called U.S. participation in science and technology relations with China “woefully uncoordinated” and government offices responsible for the relationship “woefully understaffed.” The WTO may be the best forum for taking up the widespread use of subsidies by China and their harm to U.S. manufacturers, said Andrew Szamosszegi, managing consultant at Capital Trade Inc. A WTO filing is less likely to cause “blowback” than a countervailing duties petition by U.S. manufacturers, because American businesses don’t take part directly in WTO investigations and the U.S. government has the “visible support of other countries,” he said. For the equipment business, the challenge concerns manufacturing prowess and more than standards, he said. As China becomes more integrated into global research and development activities, it will “no doubt” steadily seek a greater voice in negotiations about technology standards, said Prof. Denis Simon of Penn State’s School of International Affairs.
Alcatel-Lucent may be on the rise again. It was named a network supplier Monday for China Unicom, Vietnam’s GTEL-Mobile and Belgium’s BASE. Analysts praised the deals and said developing countries will be bright spots for vendors in the global downturn. They also saw the recession as an industrial shakeup that’s making major players stronger and weakening smaller ones.