AT&T will manage a dedicated network for NBC to transmit its digital coverage of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing for its broadcasts, it said. Through a deal with the China Netcom Group, AT&T will also provide also provide telecom services between China and U.S. during the summer games.
Exports to China
Qualcomm plans to test 4G technology early next year, the company said Monday at the Pacific Crest Technology Forum in San Diego. Qualcomm will test UMB in Q1 2008, with commercial launch expected by mid-2009, said Behrooz Abdi, Qualcomm CDMA technologies vice president. LTE, a rival 4G technology, will see commercial launch in late 2009 or early 2010, he said. The timing could change if UMB and LTE technology are harmonized, but Abdi said he does not expect that. Qualcomm is selling more mobile phone chips, Abdi said. The company has seen “unexpected growth” from CDMA, particularly in India and other emerging markets, he said. There has been “better than expected” migration to EvDO technology, especially in the United States and Japan, Abdi said. The UMTS 3G mobile phone technology is meeting expectations, he said. AT&T’s drive toward 3G, greater presence by operators in China, Korea and Europe and Qualcomm’s announcement of an UMTS chip with HSDPA technology have helped spur growth after a slow start, he said. Qualcomm, gaining ground with W- CDMA, aims to achieve 50 percent market share, Abdi said, declining to say by when. The company will keep adding new technologies to its chips, he said. GPS has been part of the chipset for four years, cutting costs so much rivals must integrate that technology to compete, he said. Bluetooth integration should pick up “over a couple of years,” Abdi said. And Wi-Fi, now with an attach rate below 10 percent, will see more integration the next five years, he said. Abdi spoke confidently about the company’s standing among competitors, which he said won’t have an HSDPA/UMTS single chip solution for 18 months. Rival TI “will continue to compete on cost,” and Infineon’s UMTS chips still lack HSDPA technology, he said. Marvell and other competitors will try to mimic Qualcomm’s roadmap, he added.
China is tightening its grip on the media as the 2008 Beijing Olympics draw closer, but the Internet may offer a back door to free expression, the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission heard Tuesday in Washington. The Voice of America and Radio Free Asia told the board, created by Congress, that the Chinese government routinely jams their radio and TV broadcasts, but online information transmissions and content relays are harder to stifle.
The European Community has asked to participate in U.S.-requested discussions with China on trading rights and distribution services involving publication and audiovisual entertainment products, the World Trade Organization said Thursday. The EC has a substantial trade interest in the dispute between the U.S. and China, fulfillment of China’s WTO commitments and application of the General Agreement on Trade in Services and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, it said. At issue in the talks are trading rights for imported films released theatrically, audiovisual home entertainment products, sound recordings and publications, including in electronic form. Also under discussion is market access for audiovisual services and products. The U.S. asked in April for the discussions.
UTStarcom won a bid to sell its IPTV platform to China Telecom, it said. The initial deployment will provide up to 10,000 subscribers 52 linear TV channels, 48-hour time- shifting features, 3,000 hours of VoD, karaoke, online gaming and TV-based text-messaging. The terms were not disclosed.
The European Commission (EC) picked Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld (DVB-H) to be the single European mobile TV standard Wednesday, enraging supporters of rival mobile broadcast formats. The EC will add DVB-H to the European Union’s official standards list in the coming weeks, and may propose to mandate the technology’s use next year, it said. The Commission said it chose a single standard to tackle technological fragmentation and boost mobile TV deployment, but opponents said the non-technology-neutral approach could cripple Europe’s competitive marketplace.
Consumers get better telecom services for less in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries -- but with investment rising, operators face challenges in deciding how much and how soon to invest in next-generation networks, the group’s “Communications Outlook 2007” study said. In 2005, more than 60 percent of 256 million Internet subscribers in the 30 OECD countries, which cover North America, Japan, Australia and much of Europe, had broadband, an OECD release said. Revenue from broadband is offsetting telecom operators’ falling voice revenue, the study said. “Trends show a distinct shift away from paying for voice to paying for data, which can also be used to transport voice,” OECD said. Operators must decide how much and when to put into fiber optics and other next generation networks rather than continuing to pour money into traditional copper networks. Japanese fiber subscribers can upload and download at 100 Mbps, ten times the OECD average, the study said. The price paid per Mbps in Japan is the lowest in the OECD, it said. A growing trend is buildout of networks by local municipalities that require local network operators to offer competitors access under equal terms, OECD said, adding that when it comes to stimulating deployment no size fits all. Governments, industry and local authorities need to collaborate to find the best way to upgrade telecommunications networks, OECD said in a news release, noting that the more than $1 trillion in voice revenue remains the cash cow in OECD countries. Downward price pressure from VoIP will continue, and mobile services are increasingly important in OECD markets, with revenue having tripled 2005 to 39 percent of total telecom revenue, the release said. Mobile subscribers outnumbered fixed subscribers in OECD countries 3-1, the report said. During 2000-2005, yearly outlays on data and communications technology in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa rose more than 19 percent to $227 billion, compared with a 5.6 rise in world spending on data and communications technology, the release said. Spending in OECD nations rose 4.2 percent.
The U.S. leads the world in information technology (IT) competitiveness but like other top players must guard against losing its edge, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said Wednesday. The EIU is part of the Economist magazine. Its white paper, The Means to Compete: Benchmarking IT Industry Competitiveness, gauged the IT industry environment in 64 nations, ranking countries according to sector performance. The findings are meant as a “road map” for governments, said Business Software Alliance (BSA) President Robert Holleyman, whose organization sponsored the study.
SANTA CLARA, Cal. -- Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin thinks now he was naive to be shocked that members of the Indian business establishment pulled strings trying to block his company’s $11.1 billion takeover of Hutchison Essar mobile in their own interests, he said. “The good and the great of India” put the arm on government ministers and other top officials, trying but failing to undo the results of this year’s auction for a majority stake in the cellular carrier, Sarin told fellow alumni of the Indian Institutes of Technology on Saturday at their annual world reunion.
China launched Chinasat 6B Thursday, said the Chinese government and Chinasat 6B contractor Thales Alenia Space. Thales Alenia Space helped with the launch and will do in- orbit testing once Chinasat 6B reaches its orbital location of 115.5 degrees east, the company said. Chinasat 6B, based on Thales Alenia Space’s Spacebus 4000 C2 platform, is guaranteed a 15-year life span. Carrying 38 C-band transponders and operating on 9.5 kW of electrical power, it will enable ChinaSatCom to offer 300 TV programs across China, southeast Asia, the Pacific and Oceania. Chinasat 6B is the second contract for Thales Alenia Space by ChinaSatCom, said Thales, whose predecessor, Alcatel, built parts for Chinasat 1 in 1984. The launch was the seventh Chinese satellite sent up year. Chinasat 9, which will offer direct-to-home satellite TV with high-definition signals, is set for a fall launch.