Thursday, June 29, 2006

Huawei wins Netcom ASON trial

Huawei wins Netcom ASON trial
6/29/2006, Huawei today announced that they became the sole provider for ASON commercial trial of China Netcom's Longhual transmission network. Huawei won this bid after half year work with their full ASON solution and mature experience on ASON application. Huawei will provide Optix OSN series equipments to China Netcom.

Henan Mobile launch Mobile TV next month
6/28/2006, Xinhua news agency, Henan Mobile will launch mobile TV service from July 2006. Cooperated with Henan CATV, Henan Mobile's user can receive live TV services of all the Channels Henan CATV can provide now.

Wei of China Telecom appreciates IMS
6/29/2006, From IMS technology developement consulting meeting, Mr. Wei,leping, CTO of China telecom, said he thought IMS would have a good prospect. The reason is IMS not only got supprot from telecom industry, also got support from other industries, such as software, computer industry. 

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

China Mobile guarantees Tibet railway cellphone service

China Mobile guarantees Tibet railway cellphone service
6/27/2006, This saturday, Tiber railway(From Xining to Lasa) will begin to be in service. China Mobile today announced that they are the only mobile service provider that cover total tiber railway.
China Mobile said they could provide over 80% covering with their more than 200 base stations and repeaters. All viewing position will guarantee wireless covering.


Telefonica aiming to increase stake in China Netcom
6/27/2006, According to Hongkong media, Telefonica will increase another 5% stake of China Netcom to 10% by the end of this year. Telefonica will also get another boarding member position in China Netcom. A spokesman from China Netcom verified that they are in negotiation wiht Telefonica, but no further information.

Huawei and ZTE enter Nigeria mobile carrier
6/27/2006, From State media, Mr. Cornelius Adebayo, Minister of Federal communication ministry of Nigeria, said that Huawei and ZTE have interest to become the main share holder of two Nigeria service provider: Intercellular Nigeria and Cellcom.

Both carriers use CDMA1X technology. It was said Huawei will invest in Intercellular Nigeria, and ZTE will enter another one.


Monday, June 26, 2006

China may adopt one way cellphone charge

SDPC permits Putian/ Nokia Joint-venturing
6/26/2006, National Development and reform commisssion (www.SDPC.gov.cn) today agreed on the application that state-hold China Putian set up a joint-venture company with Nokia China. The new company will develope, manufacture and sell TD-SCDMA base station equipments. Annual capacity will be 10K TD-SCDMA base stations. 
China Putian will hold 51% stake of the joint-venture company, Nokia holds other 49%. The two paraent company will invest total 900million RMB on this project.


China may adopt one way cellphone charging
6/26/2006,State media reported, China goverment is discussing the possibility of a new communication billing policy, including long expected one way cellphone charging by Chinese consumers. But not affirmation is received from any department of China goverment.
The biggest problem behind one way charging in China is considered that it will deepen the unblance situation among different carriers. Telecom Analyst, Mr. Yu,zhangkun said that what one way charging means for China Mobile just like that monkey king does not have curse again. China Mobile will accquire more maketing share after this.
According to the data from MII, from year 2003 to 2005, China mobile's market share increased from 36.9% to 40.5%. China mobile is the only carriers whoese market share increases in China market.



Friday, June 23, 2006

Huawei Predicts 10.7 billion USD Sales For 2006

Primanex unveils high isolation isolators
6/23/2006,QINGDAO, CHINA �CPrimanex Corporation today announced specifications upgrade of one of its volume products �Coptical in-line isolators. To meet market demand and customers' needs, development engineers at Primanex have been working to improve Isolator's quality and to enhance their reliability. The most notable improvements in new SPECS are higher isolations over wider operating wavelength and temperature ranges.  


The new volume-produced optical in-line isolators can achieve isolation of >50dB for dual-stage and >24dB for single-stage over +/-20nm wavelength window and -5~700C temperature range; and for -20~700C temperature range within +/-15nm wavelength window, the isolators can guarantee isolation of >45dB for dual-stage and >23dB for single-stage. Please refer to Http://www.primanex.com for details.


Primanex can provide its customers with low cost and superior performance for various types of isolators, CWDMs, DWDMs and optical switches. Primanex proprietary optical devices, such as Ultra-fast magneto-optical switches, Etalon-based Athermal wavelength reference filters and Faraday-Rotating-Mirrors will add-in tremendous values for customers when more and more applications are discovered. Primanex owns more than 15,000 square feet clean-room for volume manufacturing and has hundreds of experienced skill workers.  Primanex can produce ten thousands pieces of devices per month. Through its innovations and manufacturing capacities built-up, Primanex is becoming a major supplier of optical components in the world.


Equity Firms Bid for PCCW, but China Netcom Opposes 
6/23/2006��HONG KONG -- Texas Pacific Group and Newbridge Capital Group (''TPG-Newbridge") confirm that they have submitted a proposal to acquire the telecommunications and media assets of PCCW Limited (''PCCW'') in a letter submitted to PCCW's Board of Directors earlier this week.

TPG-Newbridge initiated its formal expression of interest in PCCW earlier this year by entering into a scheme implementation agreement on January 26, 2006 to acquire 25% of the shares of Pacific Century Regional Developments Limited (''PCRD''), a Singapore-listed company which owns 23% of PCCW (equivalent to approximately 6% indirect ownership in PCCW). This scheme of arrangement was initiated after appropriate discussions with the Singapore regulatory authorities. The shareholder vote to consider the scheme of arrangement was scheduled for June 19, 2006, but was postponed in view of developments relating to PCCW. Subsequent to the postponement, PCCW received what was believed to be an offer from another party to acquire PCCW's telecommunications and media assets. In light of such events, TPG-Newbridge has submitted its letter to PCCW with the objective of providing the Board with a constructive alternative to consider.

 
TPG-Newbridge's proposal is conditional on the support of the Board of Directors and the shareholders of PCCW. As stated in the letter, ''We recognize the responsibility and sensitivity that come with the ownership of such a significant and strategic asset and are prepared to work cooperatively with regulators and other shareholders to create a transaction that benefits and is acceptable to all parties.'' Furthermore, we note the public statement made earlier this week by China Network Communications Group Corporation, which is consistent with our desire to pursue a transaction in accordance with the interests of all parties.

In accordance with the requirements of the Singapore Code on Takeovers and Mergers, the directors of Newbridge Century Ltd., which is the special purpose vehicle formed by Newbridge for the purpose of acquiring shares in PCRD, have taken care to ensure that the facts stated and opinions expressed in this document are fair and accurate and that no material facts have been omitted from this document, and they jointly and severally accept responsibility accordingly. As of the date of this release, the meeting of the scheme shareholders of PCRD has yet to be reconvened.
 
Above came from news releases from PCCW. But according to Hongkong media, China Netcom, who is the 2nd largest share holder of PCCW, has published announcement to oppose this bid. China netcom warned PCCW that telecommunication industry relate with national security, foreign companies shouldnot control PCCW, which is the no.1 fixed line carriers in Hongkong.


SK Telecom invests $1b in China Unicom 

6/20/2006, (Associated Press via NewsEdge) SK Telecom, South Korea's biggest wireless carrier by revenue, has agreed to buy $1 billion worth of convertible bonds issued by China Unicom, the listed arm of China's second most popular cell phone provider, as part of a strategic alliance, China Unicom said in a statement.

The two companies also have agreed to work together on their CDMA mobile phone businesses.

The bonds are convertible to 899.75 million shares, which represent about 7.15% of the issued and outstanding shares of China Unicom as of June 20 and about 6.67% of the enlarged issued and outstanding share capital of China Unicom, according to the statement.

Hong Kong-listed China Unicom expects the net proceeds of the bond issue to reach $997 million, which will be used for general corporate and working-capital purpose.

China Unicom said its alliance with SK Telecom will cover CDMA businesses including handsets, network, and value-added services for mobile phones.

China Unicom, which also operates a global system for mobile communications services, or GSM network, has seen its earnings hurt by a much weaker CDMA operation.

China Unicom's CDMA operation posted a pretax loss of 200 million Chinese yuan ($25 million) in 2005, down from 563 million yuan in 2004.

By contrast, its GSM operation's pretax profit rose 6.5 % to 7.28 billion yuan ($910 million) in 2005 from 6.83 billion yuan in 2004.

Merrill Lynch analyst Wendy Liu said in a research report that the deal is good for China Unicom.

"The Unicom management is keen to turn around Unicom ... Finding the right CDMA strategy has been a challenge. We think SK Telecom could be very helpful in this regard," Liu said.


Huawei Predicts 55% Regional Sales Growth For 2006
6/20/2006, Chinese supplier Huawei announced today that it expects contract sales in the Asia-Pacific region �C excluding China, Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong �C to reach US$2B during 2006. That's a 55 percent jump on last year's US$1.29B of contract sales in Asia (which was itself an 180 percent advance on the 2004 performance.)

Price still remains one of the key reasons why Huawei is expanding so fast outside China," says one financial analyst who wished to remain anonymous but works with the Chinese vendor. "Typically, it undercuts its western counterparts by as much as 20 percent. This is not as high as it used to be as Western vendors themselves are lowering their production costs by manufacturing in China as well."

Huawei says it now has a sales presence in 13 countries across the Asian region with actual products deployed in 20 countries. Its product focus in Asia is next-generation networks for fixed and wireless carriers. Among its customers are TT&T in Thailand, TM & TIME in Malaysia, PTCL & Telips in Pakistan and JTB in Brunei. Huawei has already won four 3G contracts in the region: B-Mobile in Brunei, Celecom in Malaysia, NTS in Indonesia and Econet in Indonesia.
 
Also from Communication Asia, Mr. Liu,jiangfeng from Huawei told state press that Huawei's revenue growth will be 30%, reach 10.7billion USD this year. In year 2005, Huawei got a revenue growth of 42%.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

China Mobile, China Unicom cut rates

China Mobile, China Unicom cut rates
6/14/2006, From June 9, China Mobile will adopt the same roaming rate for international and Hongkong, Macau, Taiwan users. This new rate will include 50% cut on calling in service, GPRS roaming service and **139 service. State press reported today. Take Germany as an example, new rate only cost soccer fans 14.99Yuan per minute if they call back to China from Germany. Befort this adjustment, the cost will be 18.15 Yuan per minute. During the world cup 2006 period, soccer fans can even enjoy lower rate.

Not only China Mobile, China Unicom also said they were considering price reduction. From an Unicom sponsered International carriers conference hold in Shanghai today, China Unicom were negotiating with those foreign carriers on roaming rate cutting.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

China Telecom aiming at 7million new broadband subscribers this year

China Telecom aiming at 7million new broadband subscribers this year
6/13/2006, From the first quarter financial report, New broadband subscribers for China Telecom reached 2.14 million, and total broadband subscribers reached 23.16million.

Earlier this year, China Telecom has set up the 7 million target of new broadband subscribers. In order to finish this task, China Telecom has taken several method to speed up their broadband services. Faster internet is one of weapons on this.

China Telecom now has 75% of internet exporting bandwidth that China has. China Telecom's Exporting bandwidth now reach 2500Gpbs, backbone bandwidth now reaches 4000Gbps. On customer side, From this year, China Telecom has made big investment on ADSL network upgrading. After that, China Telecom's ADSL bandwidth will increase to 20-24Mbps per user. From next month, Some of Nanjing Telecom's customer can have this 20Mbps DSL service.


Monday, June 12, 2006

Chinese SMBs in Globalcomm2006

MII officer: China won't protect Wi-Fi spectrum
6/11/2006,"The spectrum for Wi-fi today is in fact for medical application, not for communication. " Vice director of radio management in MII, Mr. Feibo Xie told local press, "Wi-Fi is a indoor gadget developed by IEEE, the spectrum Wi-Fi uses is not communication spectrum, Chinese goverment will not provide protection for it".

After Chinese Wi-Fi security standard WAPI rejectd by ITU last month, Chinese officer always consider that is an unfairness to China. The recent announcement by Xie is also a kind of reflection of this emotion.



Chinese SMBs in Globalcomm2006
6/11/2006, Although Huawei, ZTE and UTStarcom didnot attend the Globalcomm2006 show, some small or medium sized companies in Mainland China and Taiwan exhibited their strong interests on North American market through the show. These companies include media converter/ swith manufacture, PON equipments manufacutre, OSP products manufactures, connector companies, VoIP products companies and power supply provider.

The No. 1 and No. 2 media conveter manufactures in Mainland China, Raisecom and Fiberhome network both attended the show. Raisecom also attened last year's supercomm. The revenue of the 2 companies reached 400million RMB and 200million RMB each, they have most of the market share in Chinese service provider market. Compared to them, Shenzhen XDK is a small company, but they arenot newcomer to US market. They have attended OFC several times. They are eager to develope overseas market.

The No. 1 OSP product company, Sun&Sea came to Globalcomm this time also. During the OFC show this March, their exhibition once made their competitors like ADC very unset. Mr. Wang,jingsheng, CEO of Sun&Sea, told me that they would use their own brand to develope US market, although it will need longer time.

Photon Broband, subsidary of Neophotonics China, brought their BPON ONU and OLT products to Globalcomm. They consider their cost advantage will attract customers. But, Mr. Wang,yong told me their interest is still domestic market, they hope to learn something from the show.

Pandatel, a traditional German media converter company, purchased by Shanghai-based dowslake several months ago, came to Globalcomm too. CEO, Dr. Dan Yang told me Pandatel was a great brand in European and China market, although they didnot do well in North America market. But that is advantage of Dowslake. After merge of the 2 companies, Dr. Yang has confidence on the future of the new company.

Not like above equipment manufactures, Some other Chinses exhibitors focusd on consumer products. A Shenzhen VoIP company exhibited kinds colourful lovely small VoIP gateways. Some Taiwan companies showed their WiFi cellphone, even one Taiwan company showed their Skype PBX and Skype Phonw. On wireless side, I also saw one Taiwan company exhibited kinds of WiFi signal extender products. A Taiwan company named PLANET showed their wireless mesh products.

It is not easy for Chinese companies to develope North market. Some Chinese exhibitors told me they were glad to see some visitors from south America and Europe during the show. But anyway, North market is still their focus. Asked about how to develope US market, all Chinese exhibitors told me they understood they need longer time, they need to pass lots of certification first, they need to find some good distributor, there is a long way before them. Somebody told me some e-commerce website like Global Resource and Alibaba.com can help them, but some just said only exhibition was helpful.

If you know somebody who have interests to distribute Chinese communication products in North or South America market, Pl. contact me.


Friday, June 09, 2006

Reasons of Huawei entering Harbour


Reasons of Huawei entering Harbour
6/9/2006, Below opinions come from all editors of China fiber optics online(http://www.c-fol.net/

Huawei wants Harbour's team
Including CEO Yinan Li, many high ranked staffs of Harbour came from Huawei. They experienced very hard and very special excerices in these years in Harbour. At the same time, they are familliar with Huawei. They are just the guys what Huawei needs now. Especially Harbour's CEO Yinan Li, we guess there is a big possibility that he becomes Ren's successor.

Huawei wants to avoid stronger competitor
Last year, there was a rumor that Siemens would purchase Harbour, if then, mastering the channels of Hurbour, Siemens would become strong competitor of Huawei in domestic market. Now there is no such dangeours.

Huawei needs new culture
We noticed Huawei launched their new logo, and Ren wrote a series of articles talking Huawei's new culture. That means Huawei needs more friends,not more foes. Purchasing Harbour, such a long time competitor and former traitor, Huawei showed their kindness and determination to the world.


WRI developes 80X40G DWDM system
6/9/2006, Beijing, A news announcement meeting named Ultra-speed, Ultra-capacity, Ultra-long haul optical communication technology development was hold in Beijing yesterday. Wuhan Research Institute(WRI) announced in the meeting that their 863 project "3Tnet scaleable 80X40G DWDM transmission sysem engineering and experiment " jointed by China Telecom had passed the certification of Science and technology Ministry. The system supports 40million people communicating at the same time.

Vice Minister of MII, Mr. Lou,qinjian, Vice minister of Science and technology, Mr. Ma,songde, attended the meeting yesterday.

Friday, June 02, 2006

ZTE facing investigation in India

6/2/2006, Indian goverment has halted one expansion plan for ZTE in India recently. State press reported. For the same reason as Huawei faced last year, Indian goverment worried that the quick expansion of ZTE will hurt those local companies. Before this new policy, ZTE was considering build a new factory in India.

Huawei's workaholic died in his working
6/2/2006, a young Huawei engineer died in his 25 age yesterday, many people Huawei's enterprise culture should be reponsible for this partly. Since long time ago, Huawei's employees have a habit to bring their sleeping cushion to office and work there nearly 18 hours a day. Sleeping cushion has long been thought the symbol of Huawei's culture. The death of the young engineer give critics newest evidence to criticize Huawei's culture.