Cable subscribership worldwide rose 10 percent to 408 million in December, from a year ago, In-Stat said Wednesday. Digital subscriptions rose 41 percent to 91 million, said the research firm. North American cable operators “are feeling the effects of increasing competition for video service subscribers,” analyst Mike Paxton said, but “in other markets, demand for cable video services is growing at an almost exponential rate.” He said China added 20 million subscribers in 2007. There are 72 million cable-modem subscribers worldwide, In-Stat said.
Exports to China
The FCC gave Verizon a landing license to run a new Trans-Pacific Express submarine cable system in the U.S., the company announced Friday. Verizon said the “next-generation” undersea optical-cable system will directly link the U.S. and mainland China and completion is expected by August, “in advance of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.” The cable is being built by a consortium of Verizon, China Telecom, China Netcom, China Unicom, Korea Telecom and Chunghwa Telecom of Taiwan. It can support the equivalent of 62 million simultaneous phone calls, more than 60 times the capacity of the cable that now links the U.S. and China, the company said. It will start out with a capacity of up to 1.28 terabits a second but that can be increased to 5.12 Tbps to support Internet growth and advanced applications. Verizon finished the cable landing site in Nedonna Beach, Ore., Nov. 14, under temporary FCC authority. The company now is building out network facilities in Oregon to connect the cable to Verizon’s domestic network, it said. At the same time, “numerous cable-laying ships are in the Pacific Ocean” at work. Verizon said it has stakes in more than 18 other cable systems in the Asia-Pacific region.
Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access probably will dominate mainland China’s 3G landscape but in other areas will face an uphill battle, ABI Research said. The Chinese government strongly backs the technology, and handsets and network infrastructure are in place, but 3G rollout is held back by regulatory complications, analysts said. Restructuring of China’s telecom industry will run through Q1, with the first TD-SCDMA license issued at the end of the period, ABI said. Services will be offered first in the 10 cities where China Mobile, China Telecom and China Netcom are running trials, it said. TD-SCDMA will move to Hong Kong once Chinese government 3G plans are set -- but its success in so mature a market depend on market forces, and it will face tough competition outside the mainland, analysts said.
The FCC can’t “regulate according to the speed of convergence,” said Ericsson’s Torbjoern Nilsson in an interview this week. Nilsson, an adviser to the CEO, also outlined hopes and concerns for the 700 MHz auction and talked about existing and upcoming cellphone technology. Later, he spoke to a House of Sweden conference on Swedish innovation.
Asian, Indian and Russian companies are increasing global telecom aid and investment, the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development said Wednesday. Asian firms increasingly use cross-border mergers and acquisition strategies for overseas assets in telecom, finance and other service industries, the report said. By 2009 China will have doubled aid to Africa, targeting telecom, energy and transportation. Most aid is in kind by Chinese companies, with inputs, including labor, of Chinese origin, the U.N. said. India offers several African nations substantial aid in information technology, the report said: “Most of the aid from Asia is tied to purchases from the donor country and little information is available about actual disbursements.” Russian companies are investing more, and invedsting more directly, in telecom in the Commonwealth of Independent States and other countries. During 2004-2006, Russian foreign direct investment nearly doubled to $210 billion.
Seeking wider overseas music distribution, Motorola will buy Soundbuzz, a Singapore digital music seller. Motorola already sells music through carriers in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The Soundbuzz acquisition expands the manufacturer’s reach into India, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Motorola said. Terms weren’t disclosed. Motorola expects to close the deal this quarter, pending satisfaction of “customary conditions.”
Governments protect citizens’ privacy less and monitor their activities more, the U.S.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and U.K.-based Privacy International said. New International Privacy rankings reflect rising surveillance and falling privacy safeguards, likely a result of concern over immigration and border control, the groups said.
GENEVA -- Big questions remain over the extent to which international IPTV standards cut global marketplace delivery and protected content costs. A main goal of the ATIS IPTV Interoperability Forum (IIF) is a set of standards ensuring testable interoperability of technologies, said IIF chairman Dan O'Callaghan of Verizon. The IIF also included work from the DVB Project, DSL Forum, Digital Living Network Alliance. The IIF standards are transport-agnostic, he said.
GENEVA -- Common denominators emerging in international IPTV standards will influence global market penetration, costs and delivery of content to foreign markets, industry officials said. Standards represents investments of time and effort to create markets for equipment and services, said Dan O'Callaghan of Verizon, chairman of the ATIS IPTV Interoperability Forum.
U.S. telecom providers still face significant trade barriers abroad, despite progress opening some markets, they told the U.S. Trade Representative in annual comments on foreign compliance with U.S. telecommunications trade agreements. China was criticized by several U.S. associations filing comments late last week. So were countries as disparate as Germany, India, Jamaica and Mexico.