The China National Space Administration joined the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems as its 11th member, the consultative committee said. The space data systems group is the standards committee for space communications. Adding China will help “worldwide governmental and commercial interoperability and cross- support, while reducing operational risk, development time, and project costs,” said Mike Kearney, chair of the CCSDS Management Council. It is the first time in 11 years that an agency has been accepted, the committee said.
Exports to China
China Mobile reported net subscriber additions of 7.5 million, a 37.3 percent year-over-year increase. The company said its growth in total subscribers accelerated for the 13th consecutive month to 24.5 percent and its market share of net additions rose to 83.7 percent in May, versus 83.4 percent in the first quarter. China Mobile’s net adds topped Pali Research’s estimate by 105,000, said Pali. Pali also said it believes China is in the middle of the same accelerating subscriber growth trends that occurred in Latin America in recent years and in Europe and the U.S. in the late 1990’s. Pali said it expects China’s Ministry of Information Industry to release May net additions for the industry within the next week.
The Nepalese government, trying to please China, made communicating on Mt. Everest even more difficult than normal during the recent climbing season, Armand Musey, a former satellite industry analyst, told the Washington Space Business Roundtable Thursday. China wanted to use an ascent to the summit to highlight the Olympic games. Amid unrest in Tibet, the Chinese leaned on the Nepalese to assure the mountain would be empty as the torch ascended. After delaying issuance of climbing licenses, Nepal told climbers they couldn’t take radios or satellite gear on the climb, discouraging them from heading up, Musey said. The climbers persuaded the Nepalese to lift some restrictions. “Their strategy was to announce these restrictions loudly and then not enforce them,” he said. The government confiscated half of climbers’ communications equipment, threatening to take the rest at any point, he said. Climbers countered, giving up second-rate or inoperative equipment, and hiding gear, Musey said. Once the Chinese reached the summit with the torch May 8, the Nepalese relaxed many of their controls, Musey said. Even before teams reach the Everest base camps, the region’s communications network is tenuous at best, Musey said, showing a slide of a local Internet cafe that uses satellite connections and modems by iDirect. The modems are solar-powered, so on cloudy days, there is no Internet. Only tourists and climbers use the cafe connection, which at $20 per hour is beyond local budgets, he said. “The locals really don’t have affordable communications,” he said.
China Unicom reported May net subscriber additions of 1.146 million, down 28 percent from last year and 376,000 below Pali Research’s estimate. Pali said this was China Unicom’s lowest level of net adds since August 2006. Pali believes China Mobile will keep dominating in industry net adds and could increase its market share as China Unicom addresses the “disruption of splitting up the company” the next two years (CD May 28 p16), it said. China Unicom’s GSM network added 1.091 million new subscribers -- 118,000 below Pali’s estimate, due to weak postpaid and prepaid net adds, Pali said. China Unicom, with a 29 percent market share in China, said its subscriber base grew 13 percent to 169.678 million at the end of May.
LAS VEGAS -- FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein believes reforming universal service in 2008 is “worth trying,” aide Scott Bergmann said Tuesday in a Wiley Rein panel on USF at NXTCOMM. Officials from Sprint, Embarq, Cisco and Verizon agreed reform is needed, but disagreed on the details.
Witnesses criticized China’s restrictive Internet policies Wednesday at the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission hearing on media control there. U.S. firms also play a part in facilitating regime control of the Internet, witnesses said. The hearing was designed to help decide whether the U.S. government should act to limit the participation of U.S. firms in the censorship regimes of foreign governments, said the commissioners.
Alcatel-Lucent said it got a $1 billion framework contract with China Mobile to provide mobile equipment and services including TD-SCDMA equipment, transmission and IP router gear and related services. In a separate announcement, the French manufacturer said it will provide IP routing services to China Telecom, a fixed network operator. The project supports China Telecom’s plan to transform itself into a full-service operator, said Alcatel-Lucent. It said the deal was valued at “several million Euro,” but released no further financial terms.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has set FCC agenda meeting dates through Jan. 15, 2009, likely the end of his tenure. The FCC website does not carry dates for future meetings and Martin said recently that he does not plan to publish dates beforehand (CD May 28 p1). Dates, set based on feedback from other commissioners, have been passed along to other members, agency sources said Monday.
Mobile enterprise e-mail subscribership in China will see triple digit growth the next five years as the mobile e- mail movement gains “firm ground” in Chinese business, Research and Markets said. The report said China’s enterprise market for mobile messaging is under-penetrated but already is seeing “significant take-up.” It expects Microsoft and China Mobile to play a leadership role in the market’s growth, it said.
China Great Wall Industrial launched Zhongzing 9 for China Satellite Communications. The satellite, which will be used to broadcast the Beijing Olympics this summer, was built by Thales Alenia Space.