P-Com said it expected product sales in China to improve after Chinese Ministry of Information Industry (MII) granted 3 new frequency bands in Dec. It said MII’s decision would help China Telecom, China Netcom, China Mobile and China Unicom support rollout of broadband voice and data services. P-Com said it had received more than $1 million in orders for its point-to-point products to customers in China.
Exports to China
China International TV Corp. (CITC) gave Bloomberg TV license to begin 24-hour broadcasts via Chinese govt.’s direct-to-home satellite TV, Bloomberg said. English- language broadcasts will begin this month via SinoSat.
UTStarcom said it had signed $114 million contract with China Netcom for new and expansion deployments of its equipment in 3 provinces. Cal.-based UTStarcom said equipment would allow China Netcom to offer subscribers services such as short text messages, MP3 downloads, Internet browsing.
Fourteen key trading partners don’t comply with World Trade Organization (WTO) requirements, CompTel said in comments (CD Jan 6 p7) filed with U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). It said Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Singapore, S. Africa, Switzerland and Taiwan weren’t meeting market-opening requirements under WTO trade agreements. It also put 4 other countries -- Belgium, Ireland, Sweden and Spain -- on “watch list.” CompTel said Chinese telecom regulator Ministry of Information Industry (MII) had precluded growth of competitive market by applying “very narrow” interpretation of value-added services. AS result, it said, few foreign entrants had applied for licenses and none had been approved. CompTel said U.S. govt. should work with China to ensure that it established regulatory body that was separate from any basic telecom supplier. It said that task could be difficult because Chinese govt. owned and controlled all major operators in telecom industry. Japan also has “work to do” to effectively regulate Nippon Telegraph & Telephone (NTT) as dominant carrier, CompTel said. It said Japan should remove “burdensome” regulation on nondominant emerging carriers, reduce excessive fixed-to-mobile rates, create independent regulator. CompTel expressed concerns about “unnecessary” and “burdensome” distinction between licenses that it said “hinder the ability of new entrants to roll out networks quickly and cost-effectively.” It also said Japanese high fixed-to-mobile termination rates could have “significant” economic effect as more telephone calls from U.S. terminated on Japanese cellular network. Mexico hasn’t made much progress toward meeting its WTO commitments, CompTel said. It said Mexico continued to maintain barriers protecting its high international settlement rates by prohibiting alternative commercial arrangements and setting its rate well above industry norm. CompTel said Mexican regulators hadn’t issued new dominant carrier rules to prevent Telmex from engaging in anticompetitive actions. Mexico also prohibits foreign control of carriers authorized to own basic telecom facilities, violating its WTO obligations, CompTel said. France is violating Sec. 5 of Reference Paper, which requires that regulatory body be separate from and not accountable to any supplier of basic telecom services, CompTel said. It said it also was concerned about pricing and provisioning of local access leased lines in France. France Telecom (FT) refused to introduce interconnection leased lines and degraded quality of service commitments in its leased line contracts with new entrants, CompTel said. It said it was concerned that FT was giving “preferential treatment” to its retail arm for premium services. Finally, CompTel said, French govt.’s decision to provide 9 billion euro loan to FT “may violate the national treatment obligation under GATS.”
More than 60% of cellphones will be manufactured in Asia by 2008, research firm Strategy Analytics said in report. It said China would manufacture 46% of 698 million cellular handsets in 2008. However, it said, design leadership would remain in mature wireless markets such as Western Europe. Global Wireless Practice senior analyst Neil Mawston said China was becoming “electronics workshop of the world.” He said China’s low labor rates and massive potential market made it “number one worldwide location for long-term mass- market handset production.” Report said China had 27% share in 2002. It said Central and Latin America, particularly Brazil and Mexico, also could see solid growth in handset production, serving N. American and expanding Central and Latin American markets. Another study, by Allied Business Intelligence, said smartphones would dominate wireless handset market by 2008. It said number of replacement handsets shipped would grow to 591 million units in 2008 from 211 million in 2002, representing 85% of all shipments worldwide at that time. Study said that of estimated 406 million handsets shipped in 2002 only 15% incorporated color display, but that number would jump to 97% by 2008.
Key Internet and telecom companies signed on as part of U.S. delegation to next month’s China-U.S. Telecom Summit in Xiamen, China, Telecom Industry Assn. (TIA) said Tues. Delegates are from Agilent, Andrews, Cisco, Intel, Lucent, Motorola, Nortel Networks, Qualcomm, Verizon and others, TIA said. Meeting Feb. 20-22 brings govt. and industry officials together to discuss future of telecom and information technology in China, TIA said. U.S. govt. representatives include: NTIA Dir. Nancy Victory, FCC Comr. Copps, International Trade Administration representatives of Dept. of Commerce, foreign commercial service officers from U.S. Embassy and Consulate in China. China will be represented by, among others, its Minister of Information Industry; dir. gens. in that ministry; and key Chinese telecom operators and equipment manufacturers, TIA said. Topics include broadband and wireless development, information and network security and telecom reform. -- www.tiaonline.org/policy/regional/asia/chinasummit.
China and some Latin American countries don’t comply with WTO requirements, AT&T said in comments filed with U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). AT&T said China failed to realize its potential as competitive market due to its “overly narrow” interpretation of market access opportunities to foreign carriers and lack of independent regulator. It said market entry in China was delayed by “extremely narrow” views of Ministry of Information Industry’s (MII) on what constituted value-added service for purpose of international value-added network service licensing. It said definition of foreign investors in China was “much more narrow” than list of value-added services in China’s own Telecom Regulation that applied to domestic-owned operators. “Without a change in MII interpretation, the net effect of current licensing criteria is to define foreign-invested value-added service operators out of competition,” AT&T said. It also said Chinese govt.’s top priority should be to finalize and adopt pending Telecom Law that would establish regulatory body, organizationally separate from govt. agencies “that are focused on developing the state-owned telecommunications industry.” AT&T said regulatory environment in China was discouraging carriers from entering market: “This will continue until foreign investor have a basis for confidence that China has a clear intention and a demonstrated plan to implement its WTO commitments.” AT&T said telecom market in Mexico also was harmed by “many barriers” to telecom competition. It said although Mexico acknowledged importance of open markets by making WTO commitments, it failed to implement them. It said Mexico failed to ensure availability of cost-oriented interconnection arrangements with its major supplier Telmex or to prevent anticompetitive practices by Telmex. AT&T said Mexico should eliminate its prohibition on foreign control of Mexican carriers authorized to own and operate basic telecom facilities. It expressed concern about termination rates in Argentina that it said, “greatly exceed” cost-oriented levels. AT&T said Telecom Argentina and Telefonica de Argentina notified correspondents last year that after Jan. 1 they would apply increased rate of $0.18 per min. for international calls terminating on mobile networks, which would be more than 100% increase over previous mobile termination rates. However, AT&T said, carriers proposed to continue to charge “much lower” rates for domestic-originated calls terminating on mobile networks. Verizon didn’t file comments, but its spokeswoman said it was concerned about Mexico compliance with telecom trade agreements. She said Verizon was “optimistic” about recent actions of Mexican Parliament on telecom issues and would be working with country to solve problems.
Information technology spending will grow to $330 billion in 2006 in Asia Pacific Region, from $257 billion in 2002, Aberdeen Group said in report. Growth will be led by China and India, report said, with annual growth rates of 14.6% and 10.9%, respectively. Japan will have lowest growth rate in region, 2.25%, it said -- www.aberdeen.com.
PacificNet said its board approved telecom joint venture in China. PacificNet spokesman said venture of PacificNet and International Elite would bring minimum of $3 million profit in 2003 and would allow PacificNet to access value- added telecom services including call center, telemarketing, database, mobile applications, paging, roaming, SMS, MMS, mobile commerce, VoIP, etc. in Greater China Region. “Now we are one of the greatest players in Greater China,” spokesman said. PacificNet will have 50.1% of joint venture equity.
Hughes Electronics and Boeing Satellite Systems (BSS) have 30 days to reply to 123 charges by State Department filed Dec. 26 alleging violation of Arms Export Control Act and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). State contended unauthorized transfer of “assistance” to China “relating to the design, development, operation, maintenance, modification or repair of the launch facility or launch vehicle[s]” that exploded on takeoff. Charges are in 32- page letter sent to companies.