China agreed to end subsidies that the U.S. alleged were illegal under World Trade Organization rules, the U.S. Trade Representative said Thursday. The programs provided significant benefits to Chinese industries including information technology, the USTR said. A memorandum of understanding is designed to settle a WTO dispute case started by the U.S. and Mexico in February. Most of the subsidies were tax breaks that benefitted Chinese companies with “even a small amount of foreign investment,” the USTR said. A February 2006 WTO Trade Policy Review said 58 percent of Chinese manufactured- goods exports in 2005 were from companies of that kind, the USTR said, and the figure is growing. The U.S. may restart the WTO proceedings if China doesn’t fulfill its commitment.
Exports to China
BigBand Networks said it has five new customers for its cable gear in China. Tibet Cable, Taicang Cable, Kiayuguan Cable, Nanchang Cable and Luan Cable all bought BigBand broadband multimedia-service routers to offer more digital cable services, it said. “We're leveraging our experience… to support China’s operators as they scale to support millions of new digital TV subscribers in advance of next year’s Olympics,” said Rick Ford, BigBand vice president of Asia-Pacific.
Telecom services are an important economic export for the EU and a persistent problem in China, said Peter Mandelson, the EU Trade Commissioner’s spokesman. China continues to block European companies with discriminatory licensing, caps on direct investment and local ownership, enforced joint partnerships and discriminatory regulation, he said. Since 2001, of 20,000-plus value-added telecom licenses China has granted, only 10 have gone to foreign companies. European investment in China has fallen for two years, a sign that China’s lack of regulatory transparency troubles investors, he said. The EU Trade commissioner left Nov. 23 for the Nov. 28 EU-China Summit.
GENEVA -- Agreement on common UHF frequencies for International Mobile Telecommunications was reached Thursday at the World Radiocommunication Conference. C-band frequencies were protected, but some will be used for the mobile wireless technology. The two main bands discussed for identification for IMT were the UHF band, which the U.S. favored, and C-band, which the U.S. opposed picking for IMT, said Richard Russell, head of the U.S. delegation to the WRC.
Broadband over powerline is making inroads in the growing Internet Protocol TV market in Europe as telcos rely on the technology for distribution within the home, said Chano Gomez, vice president of technology for Spanish chipmaker Design of Systems on Silicon (DS2). European telcos using DS2 technology for in-home distribution of IPTV include BT, Telefonica, Telecom Italia, Portugal Telecom and Belgacom, he told us. IPTV is turning out to be the fastest growing business by revenue for BPL in Europe, he said. Telcos are using DSL or fiber as the access technology and then relying on power line inside homes, he said. BPL hasn’t been fine-tuned as an access technology for IPTV, he said, but has advantages in areas where there isn’t much access infrastructure or there’s just one provider. In the U.S., DS2 has focused mainly on the retail market, working with companies like Netgear and D-Link. That’s because many U.S. companies are still using plain Ethernet cable for home networking, Gomez said. “They are spending a huge amount of money on doing that.” But U.S. companies are expected to begin migrating to power line technologies “in the coming months,” he added. Markets for access BPL include India, Russia, China -- and rural areas in the U.S., where the government is providing grants and low-interest loans to encourage deployments, he said.
EchoStar will launch an HD satellite service in Taiwan after gaining approval from the country’s National Communications Commission, the company’s branch office in Taiwan said. EchoStar will launch with 22 to 24 HD channels and charge $18.50 monthly plus the cost of a satellite receiver, the office said. U.S.-based EchoStar officials weren’t available for comment Monday. The HD content will include concerts, movies and sporting events. EchoStar is targeting having 500,000 subscribers to the service within five years, the branch office said. Unclear is where the service will receive the HD content from. EchoStar bought a $40 million stake in mobile satellite service provider TU Media in February and disclosed that it was considering a similar operation for China. The EchoStar-owned S-Band satellite CMBStar is scheduled to be completed by the second quarter of 2008 and will lease transponder space to an “affiliate of a Chinese regulatory entity to support” a mobile satellite service in China. TU Media launched in 2005 has lured more than a million subscribers to a service offering 15 video and 19 audio channels.
Andrew Corporation and Nokia Siemens agreed to revise their custom filter production relationship, Andrew said Wednesday. Nokia will get more design and manufacturing control as it readies new radio frequency filter products, Andrew said. Nokia gets rights to all Andrew intellectual property related to Nokia’s wireless filter products, and certain Andrew personnel in Italy will continue providing engineering and technical work exclusively for Nokia. Nokia will also produce its own filter products, previously manufactured at a China-based Andrew facility. The agreement, which takes effect immediately, “enables Andrew to increase its direct-to-operator channel focus,” Andrew said. Cash was exchanged, but Andrew declined to disclose amounts.
LONDON -- Access to mobile communications won’t bridge the digital divide in developing economies, several participants said Monday at the Chatham House/International Institute of Communications conference. Operators such as Vodafone invest in African networks up and get them running - - but then return to Europe to finance newly emerging technologies, leaving Africans with only basic services, Cagney Casimire, deputy chairman of the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago, said in an interview. Vodafone, however, said “dramatic” evidence shows the benefits to developing nations of mobile access.
TNS will test Arbitron’s Portable People Meter in Beijing in a joint venture with China’s CTR Market Research, it said. The PPM, a pager-sized device, passively measures exposure to radio programming. In the U.S. it’s being phased in as a replacement for Arbitron’s paper-and-pencil diaries. Testing the PPM in China now, the companies hope to have media measurement service working for the 2008 Olympics.
An IEEE 802.16/WiMAX variant was approved Thursday by the ITU Radiocommunication Assembly as the sixth radio interface for IMT-2000 (International Mobile Telecommunications), which is evolving to higher data rates. IMT-2000 is the ITU’s global standard for 3G wireless communications. China, Germany and a group of ten telecom companies are challenging the approval. Work will begin in ITU-R to address the concerns. The assembly also approved updates to existing IMT-2000 radio interfaces. Richard Russell, U.S. Representative to the World Radiocommunication Conference, welcomes the decision to include WiMAX in ITU’s list of advanced broadband mobile phone technologies known as IMT-2000, a news statement said. The decision places WiMAX alongside 3G mobile networks, improving chances for it to develop as a next-generation broadband mobile technology, the statement said. The U.S. had pressed to include WiMAX in IMT. “The broadband wireless industry and its consumers around the world will greatly benefit from the clear inclusion of WiMAX into the IMT-2000 bands,” said Andrew Kreig, president of the Wireless Communications Association. “Service providers will have more technology options, while WiMAX consumers and service providers will benefit from the economies of scale stemming from global harmonization.” Steve Sharkey of Motorola said “this action puts WiMAX on a level global playing field with the GSM and CDMA families of technology and will help ensure that carriers are free to implement technology based on user requirements rather than being limited by regulatory fiat.”