Ericsson said it signed a $32 million contract with Guangdong Mobile Communication for expansion of its GPRS network in 22 cities in China. It said it expected the network capacity would reach 1.88 million subscribers by the end of Feb.
Exports to China
The Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) hopes to help the global space industry by publishing the results of a study on the role of public and private actors in The Commercialization of Space & the Development of Space Infrastructure. The study, being done through the OECD’s International Futures Program (IFP), won’t be complete until late 2004. Pierre-Alain Schieb, an IFP counselor, discussed the project and its goals in a presentation at the Washington hq of the OECD.
Equipment spending by U.S. telecom service providers is reaching more “sustainable, longer term historical levels,” following the last 2 years of sharp decline, an S&P industry survey reported. The study said that while the worst was yet to come, “the end may be in sight” as spending rates by service providers approached the historical average of 15% of revenue, compared with 30% at the peak in 2000. The survey also said that internationally, the low fixed line and cellular telecom penetration rates in China presented a significant growth opportunity for years to come -- www.standardandpoors.com.
Ever-chagrined by the obligation to pay royalties to overseas patent-holders for low-margin digital products such as DVD, a consortium of govt.-backed Chinese consumer electronics companies said they've developed their own standard and patents for next-generation digital products aimed at a huge and increasingly-affluent domestic population. The so called “Audio-Video Coding Standard” (AVS) could shave $300 million to $1 billion from the end- user cost Chinese consumers would absorb over the next 10 years from royalty-payments built into digital devices, China Daily reported. The announcement of AVS came Thurs. at the AVS Forum 2003 in Beijing. Gao Wen, head of the AVS standard working group supported by China’s Ministry of Information Industry, said: “With our own AVS standard, we will be able to develop China’s audio video standards without being controlled by foreign patent-holders.” Huang Tiejun, secy.- gen. of AVS Working Group, said they'll submit standard this year for ratification as national standard in 2004. First chip based on AVS standard will be available by year-end 2003, preparing groundwork for large-scale adoption in 2004.
Alcatel said it won a multi-million dollar contract from China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Corp. (CPECC) to build an integrated telecom network for the Pak-Arab Pipeline Co. in Pakistan. It said it would design, integrate, install and commission all telecom applications, including an optical transmission backbone, covering 18 sites along the pipeline. The project is scheduled for completion in 2004.
Moody’s put its rating of Motorola on review for possible downgrade, a move that would affect $8 billion of securities. “The review is prompted by concerns that the rebound in revenues and a return to meaningful levels of profitability from the current depressed levels may be protracted,” Moody’s said. The review is examining challenges to the company’s personal communications segment created by market competition, particularly China, which is Motorola’s largest market outside the U.S. Moody’s also will examine the impact of handset pressures on the company’s battery operations and semiconductor products segment. Motorola Tues. reported a 2nd-quarter net profit of $119 million, reversing a year-ago loss of $2.3 billion, but said its sales dropped 10% to $6.2 billion as a result of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in China and increased competition from Chinese rivals. The company, which has the largest share of the Chinese mobile phone market, said it expected a moderate improvement in both sales and earnings in the 3rd quarter, as SARS abated.
Ericsson said it signed a $57 million CDMA2000 1X expansion contract with China Unicom. It also said it signed a 5-year agreement with Centennial Communications’s U.S. Wireless operation to upgrade its digital wireless network with EDGE-ready 850 MHz GSM/GPRS radio access and core network equipment.
Alcatel said it had signed expansion contracts this month to supply 1 million DSL lines to China, including 920,000 to China Telecom.
The Asia-Pacific region added 3.53 million broadband users in the first quarter, raising its total to 28.53 million, with copper accounting for 70.2% of all connections, an Asiacom report said. The growth was led by Japan, which the report said added 1.6 million new connections, a 143% growth rate that gave Japan 9.4 million subscriptions at the end of the quarter. However, S. Korea still leads all other Asia-Pacific countries with 10.8 million subscribers, 37.8% of the region’s total. Of the other countries in the region, only China and Taiwan were able to break the 1 million broadband subscriber mark, with 4.21 million and 2.26 million, respectively.
Motorola signed a contract with China Unicom worth more than $80 million for the phase III expansion of the operator’s CDMA Access 2000 1X network. By its scheduled completion in the 2nd half of 2003 it will more than double the capacity of the network in Nanjing, Suzhou, WuXi, Changzhou, Nantong and Zhenjiang, enabling service for up to 2.2 million subscribers.