Gilat said it won 2 contracts: (1) With Jingxin Hero to provide broadband Internet connectivity throughout China using VSAT satellite communications network. Jingxin also plans to use network to offer high-speed IP-based applications, including corporate intranet and IP multicasting, Gilat said. Network implementation is to begin in July and finish by end of year. (2) With Bharti Broadband Networks to provide VSAT network services for businesses in India.
Exports to China
CTIA signed Memorandum of Understanding with Chinese Institute of Communication (CIC) recognizing importance of developing “close cooperative relationship” between 2 largest wireless markets in world. Memorandum said China and U.S. should participate in frequent exchanges of information and joint seminars to develop wireless industry in both countries.
AOL Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin lambasted federal govt. for taking one year and one day to approve AOL’s purchase of Time Warner in Jan., calling it “outrageous” that FTC and FCC took so long and scrutinized merger way they did. In wide-ranging stage interview with CNN’s Larry King at NCTA convention in Chicago Wed., Levin took federal agencies to task for “trying to apply 19th century concepts to 21st century reality” in merger review. “So many of these rules were put in place at a time to take care of a situation that doesn’t exist anymore,” he said. Without naming them directly, he criticized such rival media powerhouses as Disney and Viacom for lobbying for strict merger conditions while pursuing regulatory relief for themselves, calling it not “good form.”
MPhase promised ILECs “everything to put telcos into the television business” with system to deliver TV content, voice and high-speed data services over telephone local loops. MPhase said Traverser product was “industry first” end-to-end system that used asymmetric DSL (ADSL) technology to work in telephony environment. Company can provide TV programming to domestic carriers through partnership with AlphaStar. Of system components, Program & Control Center (PCC) serves function of cable headend aggregating TV programming and Internet access. Small telcos can place PCC in central office (CO), company said. Larger carriers will need to set up PCC in central location to feed multiple COs. Delivery of TV, Internet and phone traffic to consumers is through local loop to Intelligent Network Interface that receives DSL content and acts as equivalent to cable industry set-top box. Video is encoded with MPEG-2 compression and uses about 4 Mbps of 6.2 Mbps total ADSL downstream bandwidth. Service works “up to 12,000 feet” from CO but is susceptible to well-known DSL delivery problems including interference from bridge taps, line noise, even light dimmers and AM radio. At for range of service, MPEG- compressed video stream will begin to suffer encoding errors that product can correct to some degree, company said. For telco, PCC costs $250,000 -- “not a million-dollar number as in cable headends,” mPhase spokesman said. Equipment to deliver content to user is sold per port, starting at $1,500 and as low as $1,000 in volume, he said. MPhase said it was targeting 300 U.S. telcos that had 5,000 to one million local loops. “We're going after the companies that own the loops,” spokesman said: “The Traverser system could be used by a CLEC that wanted to differentiate its service, but -- to be polite -- most haven’t shown an ability to scale their services.” MPhase expects most sales will come from outside U.S., with small telcos serving dense population areas. Company recently completed testbed in Turkey and said it was negotiating with large telcos in China, Brazil, Italy and Mexico.
CDMA Development Group reported subscribers grew 58% worldwide in last year to reach 90 million by end of March. Largest market for CDMA continued to be Asia Pacific Region with 40 million customers, up 25% in year, group said. Latin American customers grew 144% to reach nearly 16 million. N. American carriers added 15.3 million for total of 33.8 million in U.S. and Canada. Exec. Dir. Perry LaForge predicted CDMA customers worldwide would total 100 million “within the next several months,” helped in part by planned CDMA adoption of China Unicom.
Mood at Supercomm 2001 in Atlanta this week is expected to be somber following 5 boom years fed by Telecom Act. Close concern on bottom line follows severe downturn in telecom and extinction of many CLECs. Despite depressed industry, Supercomm show has grown to 900 exhibitors, but loss of business opportunity has vendors seeking new customers or new markets. With large equipment buys by carriers unlikely in near term, common theme of show involves products that let providers do more with existing resources. “The most important consideration in a downsizing market is a product that substantiates a carrier’s network investment. That carrier may want to reduce the number of people needed or a way to do a task quicker,” said Niksun Vp-Business Development Jane Fitzgerald. Her company is introducing new billing system for IP networks. How product pays for itself is ability to give provider new products from existing network, she said.
Nokia will supply Beijing Mobile Communications with equipment to expand its GSM 900 MHz and 1800 MHz network under $100 million contract. Deal includes mobile switching equipment, base stations, base station controllers, professional services. Contract continues supply agreement that Nokia and Beijing carrier signed in 1994 when service was started. Nokia said it now has $1.7 billion in investments in China.
Building world’s largest Internet Protocol (IP)-based TV service, Tianjin Zhonghuan Networks will install equipment from Minerva Networks and nCUBE to serve 1.2 million China Telecom customers. Construction will start within 30 days on system to deliver multichannel IP TV over fiber broadband network to multiple dwelling units. Equipment includes Minerva streaming video encoders and Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB)-to-IP gateways coupled with nCUBE’s n4 media servers. Digital TV network will provide live TV, video on demand (VOD), near VOD, interactive advertising, time shifting, and personal video recording. Tianjin plans to build out network to 29 Chinese provinces. Terms of equipment contracts weren’t disclosed.
Group of wireless equipment manufacturers signed contracts with China Unicom, 2nd largest telco in China, totaling nearly $1.5 billion. Among them was Ericsson, which will deploy CDMA infrastructure equipment in 7 provinces in China under $200 million agreement. Deployment will begin “immediately” in provinces of Jiangsu, Anhui, Sichuan, Yunnan, Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Henan, company said. Networks are expected to begin commercial operation by year-end. Lucent received what it called largest CDMA contract in China -- close to $420 million. (China Unicom itself didn’t provide breakdown of contract values among vendors). Lucent said first part of its contract covered service area that with 4 million subscribers, with network set to begin operation by Oct. Motorola said its global telecom solutions sector won contracts worth $407 million to provide 800 MHz CDMA network infrastructure in 11 provinces, including Beijing. Total network capacity of equipment that Motorola installs is about 4 million subscribers, company said. Motorola, which has supplied China Unicom with GSM equipment in past, said it has been largest mobile wireless system supplier to telco since 1995. Separately, Nortel said its manufacturing joint venture in China, Guangdong Nortel Telecom Equipment, received one-year contracts with China Unicom valued at $275 million. CDMA equipment covered under that contract will cover 2.6 million subscribers in 6 provinces. Earlier this year, China Unicom sought bids from equipment makers for building its CDMA network. National network will be designed with overall capacity for 15 million subscribers this year, with expansion to 60 million planned by 2005.
LCC International will provide design services to China’s Unicom for nationwide wireless CDMA network. For initial contract, valued at $600,000, LCC will assist Unicom in planning, RF engineering and optimization in region near Hong Kong. Unicom is first LCC customer in China, company said.