Ericsson said it would supply its CDMA2000 1X infrastructure solutions to Indonesia and China. It said it had signed agreement with PT Telkomunikasi Indonesia (TELKOM) to supply CDMA2000 1X equipment and services for 631,800 lines in Indonesia. Introduction of CDMA2000 will provide TELKOM with increased voice capacity and allow users to access high-speed data services at speeds up to 153 kbps, Ericsson said. It said it would begin network deployment in Indonesia immediately. It also received additional $25 million to supply its CDMA2000 1X equipment and services to China Unicom, it said. New contracts follow $150 million agreement signed in Oct. for China Unicom’s Phase 2 CDMA network upgrades and expansion. Ericsson said additional contracts would increase its total Phase 2 value to $175 million. It said China Unicom expected to roll out its CDMA2000 1X services nationwide by beginning of 2003, and Ericsson already had deployed its new solution in 7 provinces.
Exports to China
While consensus among ITU stakeholders remains elusive on cost-sharing for international backbone interconnection of Internet traffic, proposal is on table for meeting in first half of 2003 to address persistent differences. International Charging Arrangements for Internet Services (ICAIS) sparked hottest debate at ITU Study Group 3 meeting that ended Dec. 13 in Geneva, industry and govt. sources said.
While stressing that technologies and other factors were in place for widespread adoption of 3G CDMA hardware and services in U.S. in coming year, CDMA Development Group called on federal officials to be vigilant in making sure other govts. didn’t hamper rollout of CDMA in other parts of world.
Asia-Pacific mobile subscribers will grow to 649 million by end of 2006, from 312 million in 2001, Yankee Group said in new report. It said it expected stable service revenue growth, with total revenue for Asia-Pacific region rising to $245 billion in 2006, from $107 billion in 2001. Yankee Group analyst and author of report Shiv Putcha said most business opportunities in Asia-Pacific would continue to come from buildout of new networks over next 5 years, and subscribers would come mostly from China and India. Report said increased Short Messaging Service (SMS) and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) traffic and revenue in developing markets and new multimodal and business applications in developed markets would encourage mobile data usage and revenue and would offset erosion of voice minutes of use (MOU) and revenue across region.
China used regulatory authority “to disadvantage foreign [telecom] firms during 2002,” U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said in its report on China’s 2002 WTO compliance. It said Chinese telecom regulator MII “arbitrarily” raised settlement rates for international calls terminating in China, “which had the effect of artificially boosting the revenues of Chinese telecommunications operators at the expense of foreign firms.”
Commerce Secy. Donald Evans and Chinese Minister of Science & Technology Xu Guanhua signed protocol agreement on technology-based economic relations between China and U.S. Evans said agreement would support China’s efforts to create business-friendly environment for technology development by encouraging global partnerships and private investment. Dept. of Commerce’s (DoC) Office of International Technology Acting Dir. Kathryn Sullivan said agreement followed previous agreement of 1997, which focused on policy dialogue between U.S. and China on technology innovations. She said new “evolutionary” agreement, called Protocol on Cooperation in Civilian Industrial Technology & Scientific & Technical Information Policy, was supposed to improve sharing of ideas between countries on how govt. could create business environment to support technology innovation. It would also improve policy dialogue across business, academia and govt., she said. Evans said it was important for govt. to encourage exchange of information between private sector and policy makers: “While we in government work to create an environment that is conducive to technology innovation, it is the private sector that is the driver of technology.” Sullivan said DoC expected to meet with Chinese officials at working level within next month to discuss next steps.
Global DSL subscribers hit 30.6 million, growing by 5 million in 3rd quarter, DSL Forum said. It said, according to London-based industry analyst Point Topic, average of 1.67 million people per month were choosing DSL broadband, up from 1.13 million per month for first 6 months of this year. DSL Forum said if growth continued at this rate, approaching 20%, more than 36 million homes and businesses around world would be using DSL broadband by end of 2002. DSL Forum Chmn. Bill Rodey said: “We are on track for 100% growth in global subscribers this calendar year, ensuring that DSL widens the gap in the broadband race. It is clear that we are well on the way to our target of a global mass market of 200 million DSL broadband subscribers in 2005.” Asia Pacific continues to lead with 40% share of world’s global broadband DSL subscribers, DSL Forum said. It said Western Europe stepped up to 2nd place with 24.34% share, just ahead of N. America at 23.84%. Fastest regional growth in 3rd quarter was in South and Southeast Asia, where China sustained over 200% growth to more than 2 million subscribers, or “massive” 845% growth since end of 2001, DSL Forum said. It said globally, 3.2% of world’s main phone lines now carried DSL services. In Asia Pacific that figure was 8.35%, with N. America in 2nd place at 3.47% and Western Europe at 3.45%. South and Southeast Asia has reached 1.22% and rest of world is below 1%, DSL Forum said. It said highest-growth countries in 3rd quarter were China at 214%, Norway at 211% and Croatia at 150%. S. Korea continues to be only country “with a true mass market already in place” with more than 6 million DSL subscribers, or 26.74% of main phone lines and about 40% households, Forum said.
Qualcomm and China Unicom signed agreement to create joint venture that would foster growth of developer community and Qualcomm’s Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW) platform in China. Companies said joint venture would “capitalize on the technical advantages of BREW technology, the competitive advantages of CDMA in wireless data and the versatile operating capabilities of China Unicom.” China Unicom and Qualcomm will cooperate to provide technical support and training for Chinese application developers to drive CDMA adoption and increased use of BREW platform. Companies said venture would allow Chinese developers to attend BREW training events and receive guidance on how to export their applications into global BREW marketplace. They said development of BREW solution continued “as carriers throughout the world join Verizon Wireless and Alltell in the United States, KTF in S. Korea and KDDI in Japan in commercializing BREW-based services. U.S. Cellular has launched a BREW user trial and China Unicom announced its plans to launch BREW-based services in China.” Companies said 29 BREW-enabled handsets already were available worldwide and 30 device manufacturers had indicated their interest in BREW platform.
New Skies opened its first China office in Beijing Tues., it said. “China is such an important market for us, particularly as we prepare to launch NSS-6,” New Skies CEO Dan Goldberg said (CD Dec 3 p8). New Skies also announced appointments of Yang Yingmei as chief representative and sales dir. for Greater China and Maurice Liu as senior sales dir. for Asia Pacific region.
China Unicom signed contracts with Nortel Networks and Guangdong Nortel Telecom Equipment, collectively estimated at $65 million for expansion of its CDMA and GSM networks. Under $25 million contract with Guangdong Nortel, China Unicom said it would expand its CDMA network capacity in Hunan Province using Nortel Networks Univity CDMA2000 1X equipment. Under contract, deployment will include Nortel Networks Univity radio, core switching and intelligent networking equipment “that will help position China Unicom to drive improved spectrum efficiency and reduced costs. Univity will also position China Unicom to migrate to all-IP packetized network,” China Unicom said. It also said it awarded $40 million contract to Nortel Networks for expansion of its GSM networks in 5 provinces. China Unicom said it expected those expansions, including GSM switching, radio base stations and transmission equipment, would increase its GSM network capacity by more than 1.25 million subscribers.