Yinan Li left Huawei again

12/26/2007, According to local media, Chief scientist of Huawei, Mr. Li, yinan left Huawei for personal reasons this month. It was said Li would set up a new telecom testing instrument company. Mr. Huang,yaoxu followed Li‘s departure also. It is second time to leave Huawei for both Mr. Li and Mr. Huang. As founding employees of Huawei, Li once was the chief technology officer and xecutive VP of Huawei, last time he left Huawei, he built Harbour network, a switch/router company. Huawei purchased Harbour last year. Mr. Huang once was the president of optical department of Huawei. Last time he left Huawei, he built a transmission equipment company and later merged with harbour. He returned to Huawei after Huawei purchased Harbour.

Guangdong Telecom invests more on IPTV

12/26/2007, According to local media, Guangdong Telecom will invest 5billion RMB more on IPTV network. The result of bidding will be opened by the end of this month. 2 years ago, Guangdong Telecom made the first purchase on IPTV equipments. Huawei won the order for Guangzhou and Shenzhen, 60K subscribers. ZTE won the order for Dongguan and Foshan, total 24K subscribers. UTStarcom won the order for Zhuhai, SHantou and ZHongshan, total 16K subscribers. From this upgrade, Guangdong telecom hope to generate more revenue from IPTV service.

In China, IPTV deployment still face the block of policy. Only a few provinces have IPTV services. Because of cooperation with local broadcaster, Shanghai Telecom now has the largest IPTV subscribers. According to the recent statistics, it now already has 220K subscribers. The total broadband subscribers in Shanghai is 3million. In Shanghai, 85% of residents can have 2M access rate from Shanghai Telecom.

China Telecom loses subscribers

12/20/2007, According to China Telecom, it has continuely losed subscibers. During the first 11 months of this year, China Telecom has accumulated 2.74 million subsribers loss. This is the first time China Telecom shows all year subscribers net loss since year. In opposition, China Mobile has a 6.51million net gain on subscribers during the first 11 months.
China Telecom pointed out the reasons for the loss of subscribers include big competition, especially from mobile service providers' one way calling package.

ZTE invests in energy industry

12/5/2007, ZTE today announced to invest 1.29billion RMB in a new energy company with its shareholders or sister companies including Zhongxianwei, Zhongxing development, Zhongxing international investment, also Mr. Hou, weigui, chairman of the board of ZTE.
ZTE said that it would still focus on communication industry. To join this investment is just to optimaize the investment structure, to increase return of investment, to look for new profit increasing source.
According to local media, besides energy and communication industry, ZTE has made investment in real estate and environment industry. ZTE enviroment company is looking forward to going public within 3 years.

Former Minister critisized telecom industry

12/5/2007, Mr. Zhu, gaofeng is the former vice minister of post and telecommunication ministry in China. In a forum hold in Beijing yesterday, He owed the big problem to Chinese carriers.

According to him, there is misunderstanding between usual customers and carriers. Customers have many negetive opnions towards the carriers about telecom product services and prices. but no carriers can give customers a clear explanation.

He also critisized the payment-delay problem. He said:"before, telecom industry is very weak, but today it is such a big industry, it makes big cash flow everyday. it is hard to believe carriers don't have money to make payment. "he also said, "Carriers always choose the lowest price when they make purchase, it makes very bad competitions among equipment suplliers."

Don't be excited with the FTTH interest of China Mobile

11/29/2007， Organized by UBS, China Mobile is making her roadshow in Europe to attract more investers. One of the most interesting topic of this roadshow is that China Mobile say they will get fixed network license and they will use FTTH to provide service to entreprises and personal customer.
Excited news, I don't think so.
Sometimes ago, the deputy minister of MII, Mr. Xi, guohua said in a conference that Chinese carriers should be all-service carrier. Soon we see China Mobile say they will get a fixed network license. But When? I don't see any indications on this. I don't believe China Mobile can get such a license in the short future.
Remember, GPON supplier Flexlight once announced China mobile applied their equipments to provide ethernet service to enterprise customers. But that is not FTTH. Why China Mobile shows such a unrealistic concept to their possible invester? Will they believe this?

Datang group began reorganization

11/27/2007, Nov. 20, The institute of telecom science and technology of MII (Datang Group) announced they would sell their 13% share of Datang Mobile with a price of 1.001billion RMB. They requested the buyer must be domestic company, and the buyer won't compete with Datang mobile. Before this, another shareholder of Datang mobile, Shanghai Putian group (another state-hold telecom equipment company) has announced to sell their 0.808% share of Datang mobile with 70million RMB.
Who is Datang mobile? They are the holder of Chinese 3G standard, TD-SCDMA standard. But why those two companies want to sell their shares of Datang mobile? Who are the possible buyer?
According to local media, Datang group expects to improve their financial situation through the deal. Although the net financial value of Datang mobile is only 71.26 million RMB, their stock market value is estimated to be nearly 8billion RMB because of the 3G concept. Some local power companies and some insurance companies have showed their interest on the shares of Datang mobile.
How is Datang mobile's financial performance? According to its own financial report, in year 2006, its revenue is 128million RMB, but the net loss is 122 million RMB. At the same time, Datang mobile has 284million short debt and 120million long-tern debt.
After this deal, Datang mobile's main shareholders will include Datang group(79.524%), Shanghai Alcatel-Bell (4.9%), and a big new investor.
Clearly, Datang group hope to get more money throught the deal, but if TD-SCDMA cann't succeed in the real market finally, How much Datang mobile will worth?

Mr. Ao li talked about GPON test

response to the remark:
GPON or EPON? Hasnt China committed to EPON as the way to do deployment? Why the new interest in GPON. THE AES security std in GPON has discouraged China's use and pushed to EPON. Is this a change?

What I wrote in the blog is about an interview on a person who is in charge of the GPON test in MII. I think the suitable description for the PON technology should be: the carriers think EPON is more matur than GPON, but they still want to test and follow the progress of GPON development. China has not decided to make large scale on PON deployment, so any technology still is possible.

11/12/2007, Mr. Ao, li is in charge of the technology work in the MII's standard institute in Beijing. According to an interview by a local newspaper, he send several information about the GPON appkication in mainland CHina. Under Ao, the institute just finished a multi-player test of GPON equipments with the cooperation of China Netcom.
1) China need to have more speaking power in the GPON area around the world. The test help Chinese carriers to understand the interconnection problems between GPON equipments from different suppliers.
2)Nearly all main stream GPON suppliers joined the test, Huawei is the first to get the licence.
3) From a GPON report by Beijing Telecom, they think GPON still need to improve in net management, system funtion, TDM processing. Commercial ASICs need further development.
4) GPON will lower their price, government should help manufactures on this problem.

ZTE new base aimes at WiMAX

11/5/2007, Aiming at WiMAX, RFID and laser display, ZTE today announced to build its new manufacturing base in Tianjin, a city 100Km west of Beijing. The new ZTE Tianjin base will include headquarter, R&D center, supply chain center and a training center. ZTE will invest more than 5 billion RMB for this project. The base is designed to be put in use in year 2011, it will bring 10 billion RMB revenue each year for ZTE.

Huawei has no interest on brand

11/4/2007, The news about firing all old employees is simmering, local government has said they would investigate if Huawei defies the new contract law. But Huawei just told media what they did is a new management method, all employees volunteerd to leave company, and they would contend for new position in a fair environment.

Many people doubt if those people are voluntary, me too. But by now, no person stood out to say I was forced, so we have to believe they volunteered to do this.

So this is the problem, how Huawei can make their nearly 7000 employees volunteer to do such a thing.

Today, I read an article which is said to be the record that Ren, zhengfei, Huawei's No. 1 talked with their employees in Venezuela. From the record, I felt that Ren was just like a General, and his employees were his soldiers. The soldiers will not disobey their General, even if this General asked them to leave the company.

From the same article, Ren has an interesting remark on Huawei's brand strategy. Ren said, Huawei mustn't take the brand strategy, brand building is too complex, it cost too much, what Huawei earn today is just the advertisment cost, the channel cost, if Huawei tried to build brand, there would be no profit for Huawei.

AOE: OFC in China

10/31/2007, Have you seen this before? this is not in USA, this is in Shanghai, in AOE, the Chinese version OFC/NFOEC. OSA organized 12 companies to attend this show.

We cann't say this show very successful. I can say it is more successful than last year for visiters, and it is successful for organizers. But for exhibitors, I don't know, especially for those foreign exhibitors who pay a good price for the show. Many their counterparts in China got the booth nearly free.

I don't want to critize the organizer, they have done a good job, it is not a easy thing to make this kind of optical communication show in China. Chinese companies often don't want to waste their money on advertisment or kinds of show, except they cann't find other direct way to find customers. You can think, such kind of show cann't help them find customers.

The organzier told us they would continue this show next year, I hope thye will be more successful in 2008.

Huawei 's HR revolution

10/30/2007, Huawei just announced a plan aiming employees with more than 8 years working experience in the company. Huawei said those employees volunteerly resigned from today's position, and then they will contend for new positons in Huawei. if they cann't get a new position, they will have to leave Huawei. Huawei will give them a good compensation. It is said that 7000-10000 employees will be affected by this plan, and Huawei will invest more thant1billion RMB on this.
Local media pointed out that Huawei is avoidting the new employee contract law which will be in effect from Jan. 1 2008. The law requires all employees who have more than 10 years experience in the same company will have a not-fixed long term contract automatically. Many entrepreneurs in China is worrying this law will increase their layoff cost, and they are are looking for ways to avoid this. Huawei is the first big company who makes adjustment towards this law.
Things maybe not such easy. from my point of view, Huawei is trying to unload its historical load. Because of its special bonus policy in the first 10 years or 15 years, Huawei's old employees have many special benefits, their bonus is much bigger than their salary revenue each year. But those later come-ins donot have this advantages. In Huawei, it seems there is two classes. Huawei's leader maybe think this is a problem they have to solve, otherwise, it will have big influence on Huawei employee's morales.
You may never see this happened in other company, But this is Huawei, it is not the first time they do this.

LGI enters Chinese broadband service providing market

10/22/2007, LGI(www.lgi.com/index.html), a delaware based world wide CATV carrier will become the first overseas company who provide basic network service in Chinese Telecom market. Last friday, Beijing Gehua CATV network (www.bgctv.com.cn), a local Chinese CATV service provider announced that they would set up a join-ventured company with LGI and another venture company PRC Venture Partners LLC. Gehua will hold 51% share of the new company. Gehua said the new company would invest at least 200 million RMB to build broadband infrastructure. With the help of LGI, the join-ventured company will be a great challenge to Beijing Netcom.

TD-SCDMA is crying, after Wimax becomes 3G standard

10/21/2007, WiMAX has become offical ITU 3G standard. As an TDD technology, It will compete with another TDD 3G standard, TD-SCDMA from China, directly. Now you can see many feedbacks from Chinese media on this news:
1) It is a big slap to Chinese goverment who supports TD standard so many years.
2) TD will have not opportunity to go abroad from today.
3) Those state-hold TD equipments developers are too bureaucratic, that is the reason why TD is still not mature enough
4) The future Chinese 3G licences will be affected deeply by this
5) Chinese should not learn Japan, on standard problem, we should not close the door. ( Japanese have many standards that are only used in Japan )
6) Forget TD, it is only a scam that helps somebody to gain more benefits in China. Because of TD, Datang telecom got hugh investments from government, Because of this concept, many public companies attracted a lot of money from stock market. But, is it a real good concept?

Asia's No. 1 telecom show?

10/18/2007, next tuesday, the biggest communication exhibition in this year will begin in Beijing. Organizer claims the show is a Olympic telecom show, a TD-SCDMA show. Nearly all the telecom/IT medias in China has prepared to show themselfs better in this show.
But not everything is in harmony. Some reporters are complaining they cannot find anything new in this coming show. They cannot find big players appeared in last year's ITU Hongkong show. Even equipments suppliers in China are not very active toward this show. By today, only Nortel China announced their plan in this show.
What we can really find from this show?

Shanghai says yes on WiMAX

9/17/2007, Jiading, a satalite city of Shanghai, today confirmed they will use WiMAX and WiFi mesh technoology to build a metro wireless monitoring system. They will use 802.16d technology to provide video transmission bandwidth from 512Kbps to 3Mbps. In mainland China, Beijing, Tianjin, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Shenzhen also have similiar Wireless city plan like Jiading.

China Telecom selects EPON

9/19/2007, In August, China Telecom finished the first phase 40K line EPON equipment purchasing from ZTE of Shenzhen, Fiberhome and Changguang of Wuhan, Greenwell and Ocean Broadband of Beijing. After nearly 2 years test, China Telecom thinks that EPON technology is mature enough, althgh they will continue follow the development of GPON technology. China Telecom also published their EPON technology request last month.
According to the EPON equipments provider selected by China telecom, in year 2008, China Telecom maybe have 200k line request on EPON equipments.

Former Unicom CTO: DSL is a wrong direction for China

8/28/2007, Mr. Liu, yunjie， former CTO , now the technology consultant of China Unicom, said in a forum in Beijing several days ago :"China service providers choose DSL, other than FTTH, maybe that was not a good choice. FTTH can provide much higher bandwidht than DSL, China should learn from Japan more. "
we should not expect much form liu's words. Because he has retired, he is not responsible for the network plan of China Unicom. What he said just reflects his thinking.
Although we can not expect much from his word, but considering his role in Chinese telecom industry, Liu's words still is very helpful to the development of FTTH in China. More people will understand the importance of FTTH from him.

China Telecom purchases EPON equipments for country application

8/24/2007, From local media, China Telecom has just finished their first EPON equipments purchase in scale. In 3 years, these equipments will be deplyed in some provinces of China. China Telecom is also considering to use EPON equipments to provide broadband services in country area.
Before this purchase, China Telecom has made several test on EPON technology. Many EPON equipments suppliers provided their equipments to China Telecom for the test. China Telecom has also build several trial network in Guangdong, Shanghai and Beijing area.

ETD Amphenol

8/20/2007， ETD, a Shenzhen fiber connector company founded in 1994, joined the Amphenol group on Dec.18, 2006 to be a branch company of Amphenol, which named ETD Amphenol Fiber Optic Technology (Shenzhen) Co.,Ltd.

I knew both the companies for a long time. Both companies always denied my interview, and they don't like to contact by medias. They have their own business, now they joined together.

ETD has a strong Taiwan background, its female boss, Ms. Li, xiuying is one of the CEOs I never meet in fiber optics industry in China. Will she be again the boss of the new company?

How much China Unicom worths?

8/15/2007, The most recent UBS report said China Unicom wanted to sell their CDMA network to China Telecom on the price of 14.6billion RMB. The price is higher than the 8 to 8.5billion USD UBS estimated before. UBS said the price had been the main obstacle behind the deal.

But according to another local securities analyst, China Unicom worths at least 100billion RMB, that is more than 12billion RMB. In the past years, Unicom has invested nearly 100billion RMB for their CDMA network. Considering 40million CDMA subscribers, the 14.6billion USD price isn't very high.

UBS always is the most active supporter on selling Unicom's CDMA network, although Unicom has denied several times. This time again, Unicom denied they would sell their CDMA network. I believe UBS must have their insider in Unicom, so they can again and again tell the public Unicom will sell CDMA network. But the reorganization of the carriers in China is more political than a financial analyst can predict. For what reason China Unicom must sell their CDMA network, I don't know.

Except UBS, not everyone believes there must be a reorganization ahead this year.

What will Netcom's Olympic service like?

8/7/2007, China Netcom today opens their showroom for 2008 Olympic games. In this showroom, China Netcom want to demonstrate their services during the games to public.

1) Netcom will use uncompressed technology to transmit HDTV signal in long distance.
2) Netcom will cooperate with Beijing transit bureau to provide electronic path finding system for foreigners.
3) Netcom will provide IPTV service with 72 hours replay function to all important hotels
4) Netcom will also provide Internet meeting system　
5) Netcom will provide Internet service based on smart card
6) Netcom will also provide online English training courses
7) Netcom will provide traffic monitoring system for Organzier

Huawei eyes for Nortel's WiMAX engineers?

7/24/2007, In order to service Olympic 2008, China Mobile is said to build a small 2.5GHz IEEE 802.16e WiMAX network in Qingdao. Huwei, Samsung, Motorola, ZTE all hope to become WiMAX equipemnt supplier for this project.

The project was thought to be the first 802.16e project. although after the Olympic games, the network will be uninstalled, Equipment suppliers still hope to give China Mobile a good impression on their WiMAX products.

The interesting thing in the original report is that in order to develope WiMAX technology, Huawei has recruited many engineers from Nortel China R&D departments, some of them even are foreigners.

The report said, In China, there were not enough R&D resources on WiMAX， so Nortel, who put WiMAX as their important direction, become the new victim of headhunting in China.

Is it this news true? Maybe only Nortel China can prove it.

Another Huawei employee died

7/24/2007, Zhang,yue, made suicide in an appatment building yesterday just after 2 months he entered Huawei. He left a letter to his parents and told them he felt too big pressure in Huawei.
It is the 3rd Huawei employee who died abnormally in this year, the first died in his work position, the second died in the lost Kenya airplane. Everytime people saw such news, they will always link it to the high pressure Huawei employees face.
A speakman from Huawei HR department denies the suicide is because of pressure. He told the press this employee was still in training , it isn't possible he faces big pressure. Anyway, Huawei will compensent the parents 10,000 RMB to console them.
Rather than the young man died under pressure from work, I would think that he died under the high expectation from his parents, his friends. In China, not many company can provide the same high salary as Huawei. To enter Huawei is always the dream of many young boys and girls, when the dream become bubble, what will happen?
I would not criticize Huawei for this, I would condemn the society.

China leads FTTH?

7/19/2007，According to the newest ranking report by FTTH council, Hongkong, a speical zone of China, leads the world in FTTH field by a 21.2% FTTH access rate. Even mainland China has a FTTH access rate more than 1%. Taiwan, a waiting-for-united province of China, also has an access rate more than 1%.
I am so supprised to see these data. Although I know Hongkong is so successful on their IPTV development, but I know most IPTV users in Hongkong are based on DSL technology, not FTTH.
For mainland China, consider the so big population, even 1% will be an amazing number. Mainland China has nearly 300 million homes, 1% will be 3 million homes. As I know, even 30K real FTTH homes in mainland China doesn't exit.
FTTH council is holding a conference in Beijing now, the number maybe is just used to make those MITT officers happy for a day.

Wang Jianzhou learns from Murdoch

6/30/2007, What is China Mobile's next step? Maybe we should look at Murdoch first. Two weeks ago, in a speech to students from public administration school of Tsinghua University, Wang, jiangzhou, CEO of China Mobile said they needed real Internet fans. Local Media wrote :"Wang's talk shows the strong and long interest on Internet world of China Mobile".
According to Wang's talk, if they enter Internet market, what they real need is not money, but human resources. Today's statd-hold enterprises like China Mobile cannot attract high spirited employees. But he didnot cleared in which way China Mobile will enter internet market.
But What drived China mobile to Internet world. Wang said it is Murdoch. When Wang talked with Murdoch on purchasing stock of Phonetix TV, Wang found Murdoch always brought the two young founders of Myspace with him. Murdoch's interest on internet made Wang thought :"Internet will be a determining power in the future."

China Guangdian blue book 2007

6/20/2007, SARFT, the regulation maker and the real manager of broadcasting and Cable TV industry (Guangdian) in mainland China, today published a blue book about its development in year 2007.
According to this blue book, in the last year, the total revenue of Guangdian has broken 100billion RMB milestone, the real number is 109.912 billion, a 18.04% increase compared to year 2005.
At the same time, the total subscribers of digital Cable TV has reached 12.6625 million, a 218.88% increase compared with year 2005. There are already 25 cities who have finished the total transformation from analog to digital TV.
In last year, SARFT also published its terrestrial digital TV national standard which will launch this August.

Why Wu ying leaves UT?

6/5/2007, Wuying, former founder of UTStarcom, also once the CEO of UTStarcom China, once nominated as UTStarcom global CEO, left UT last Friday. Also, He left UT not volunteeringly, he said he was forced to left.

In UT's news release, we can read there is disagreement between Wuing and other leaders, but the news release didn't make it clear.

According to a Chinese media report, Wuying insisted to let his UTStarcom China be an independent company, because in recent years, UT's total business became depending on Chinese business. But UTStarcom's board of directors won't accept such a suggestion. Just because this, they have to let Wu leave.

Is that a good reason? In some kind of way, Wu ying is the represent of UTStarcom in China. People like him, customers like him.

UTStarcom's stock price jump down 10% today, that shows investors also don't agree his leaving.

Rumor:China Mobile goes into fixed network assets

5/30/2007, According to local medias, It is possilbe that China Mobile will purchase some non-core assets of China Netcom and China Telecom. Using these fixed network assets, China Mobile will develope broadband data service.
But According to China Mobile, they didn't hear such information.
In China, there is always such kind of gossip news. But yesterday's gossip can be confirmed the second day. Some local analysts think China mobile cann't have so many money to invest on fixed network after their 3G investments. For me, I hope it is true. Just like Vodafone, to enter fixed network services, it is a good news for China Mobile.
First, FMC is a trend, second, those fixed network assets can be backup network for China mobile. Thirdly, Wireless broadband cann't replace wireline broadband forever.
Anyway, it worths a try for China Mobile.

IPTV subsribers in mainland China: 612K

5/23/2007, according to the most recent IPTV market report, in the end of first quarter of year 2007, mainland China has 612K IPTV subscribers, an 36.3% increase compared to 1 quarter in year 2006. Henan, Shanghai and Heilongjiang each owns the 35.9%, 24.5%, and 18.1% of the total subscribers. The subscribers number in Shanghai even has a 150% increase.
On equipment supplier side, UTStarcom, Vkom and ZTE are the top 3 suppliers. They have a totally 97.7% market share. Vkom is the No. 1 supplier in Henan province. UTStarcom and ZTE has bigger increase in Shanghai and Fujian province.

Intel wants Wuhan its WiMAX center in China

5/23/2007, Wuhan, the largest city in central China, signed a memo with Intel yesterday. Intel will cooperate with Wuhan to build a wireless broadband industry park. At the same time,Wuhan city will organize a new national WiMAX service provider based on IEEE 802.16e standard.
This is not the first time Wuhan city shows their ambition on broadband industry. Last November, Wuhan city joint-ventured with Samsung to produce WiMAX base station and terminal in Wuhan.
Last January, Wuhan city also announced a new policy to promote the FTTP development。

Three 3G licences?

5/16/2007, MII announced both CDMA2000 and WCDMA became the offical Chinese 3G standard. The local TD-SCDMA standard has been accepted since this January. Up to now, all 3 3G standards have been accepted by China. Does it mean that China will issue 3 3G licenses?

If there is 3 3G licences, will there be a M&A among Chinese state-hold carriers. Recently there was rumors that Unicom had stopped the investment in CDMA network. Many people guessed Unicom would sell their CDMA network to China Unicom. Unicom has once again denied such news.

Expensive or not? Free or not?

5/16/2007, according to a recent World bank report, the internet service charge of each user in mainland China is nearly 10 times the charge of each user in developed countries under comparing conditions. The report induced a big discussion. Even MII officer joined the discussion, they criticised the report ungrounded. Mr. Zeng,jianqiu, a Cambridge PHD, now professor of BUPT, also said in an interview that only comparement based on absolute value is significative. An article in a Beijing newspaper warned their readers be careful of behind-the-screen overseas company.

Another similar discussion related with whether India would provide free internet service. There is a report that our neighbour will do such thing after year 2009. Seems nobody in China believe India can do this, Professon Zeng even said India was bragging.

On both of these 2 problems, seems the government and the so-called elites all have the totally different opinion with the usual internet users in mainland China. Why? Who is wrong?

Huawei is recruiting san engineers

5/8/2007,according to local media, Huawei is now recruiting SAN engineers in great quantity. What Huawei requires are those software, hardware, testing, integratation, quality contraling and marketing&sales engineers. Up to now, Huwei has nearly 1000 SAN engineers. Huawei has confirmed they would joinventured with Symantec on developing SAN products.

Huawei got No. 2 in China Mobile GSM bid

5/1/2007, According to news paper, in recent 2G GSM equipments bid of China Mobile, Erission, Huawei and Shanghai Alcatel-Bell were listed as top 3 suppliers. The bid totally valued near 35billion RMB. The final news about this bid will be announced in mid of May.
Huawei's victory is claimed as a breakthrough for local supplier in China Mobile market. Traditionally, Erission, Nokia are chief equipment supplier of China Mobile. But this time, Huawei and ZTE get nearly 25% market share, Motorola, Siemens, Nortel all lose a lot of markt share.
Clearly there is a trend, Huawei and ZTE grow quicker than their international competitors, both in domestic market or overseas market. Those competitors, especially 2nd class competitors will have harder days ahead.

Huawei, Symantec in joint-venture report

4/23/2007, A leading Chinese financial journal reported today that Huawei would joint-ventured with Symantec to develope SAN and network security market. The new joint-ventured company will be named HuaSai. And the CEO of this company will be YiNan Li who was the former CTO of Huawei, founder and CEO of Harbour Networks. Last year, Li returned to Huawei after his company was purchased by Huawei. The report also said Huawei had input nearly 1.1billion RMB in this field, they have developed full secucrity product line, and have a team more than 1000 employees. Mr. Ren, zhenfei, Huawei's founder and CEO, has emphasized this field several times this year. In SAN market, Huawei's future competitors will be EMC, IBM and HP. Both Huawei and Symantic would not review on this news.

Wei Leping: I am not satisfied with GPON test

4/19/2007, It is turn for Mr. Wei,leping, the most important person in the technology field of Chinese communication industry. In today's China Broadband application forum hold in Beijing, Wei told the audience that he was not satisfied with the test result of GPON and VDSL. He said he hoped there would be better result in the 2nd round test.
So what is wrong with the test? According to Wei, for VDSL, "It is not stable, It cann't support management of both central office side and remote side, it is not fully compatible with ADSL2+ equipments, also, equipments from different suppliers cann't work together well." For GPON, Wei didn't mention.
Maybe the most important thing Wei mentioned today is about what he thought as the real bandwidth request in year 2010. According a survey by China Telecom, the high end broadband application will include HDTV, SDTV, and video communication, so 20Mbps-30Mbps will be a possible bandwidth requet. By now, Wei said he could not imagine further bandwidth request.
That is really interesting then. Several months ago, Wei once said EPON was mature enough, Now, he said he hoped GPON had a good test result. Also, he has a larger interest on VDSL,then, finally which access technology he will choose for China Telecom, let us wait.

Netcom's broadband strategy for broadband forum

4/18/2007，China Netcom today announnced that they would host the "2007 World Broadband Asia Forum". In the same situation, two high-level managers from China Netcom told public their FTTH and WiMAX strategy for the first time.

According to Mr. Zuo,feng, General Manager of Market operating department of China Netcom groupe, China Netcom is studying advanced broadband access technology including FTTH in Beijing. About WiMAX, China Netcom had made several 802.16d WiMAX trails in Southern China.

Zuo also mentioned, although Netcom has build a advanced backbone and metro network, but in the last mile field, there is still large distance from FTTH. Also, for WiMAX, China Netcom is still waiting for the maturity of 802.16e technology.

I don't think Zuo's words have any real meaning in today's situation. In real life, China Netcom is still working on increase their customer bandwidth from 512K to 2Mbps， also there is not direct incentive like NTT or FT has for a FTTx or WiMAX application.

The forum will be hold from June 5 to June 8 in China Hotel in Beijing.

UK Media:Chunghwa Telecom wants to enter mainland China market

4/17/2007， The Financial Times and Reuters are reporting that Chunghwa Telecom is planning to enter China through indirect investment in a small local operator and by teaming up with one of the mainland’s fixed line networks in 3G mobile services.
State-controlled Chunghwa expects Chinese-language data content to be a major future growth driver. However, Taiwan’s government heavily restricts telecom investment in politically hostile China. Hochen Tan, Chunghwa chairman, told the Financial Times that the telecoms company intends to offer itself as a partner to China Telecom and China Netcom once the two mainland operators obtain 3G licences.
The two networks saw their voice revenue drop last year, and believe the 3G licences could offer an important opportunity for them to regain profitability by adding mobile services to their eroding fixed line business. Mr Hochen said in order to chase China Mobile and China Unicom, the mainland’s incumbent mobile operators, the two fixed-network companies would need expertise in the development, pricing and marketing of 3G content.
‘Although the Taiwan market is much smaller than China’s, there are similarities in our habits, our language, our stories,’ he said. The plan is at odds with Taiwan government regulations, which does not allow the island’s telecoms operators to invest in the industry in China or offer services there. But Mr Hochen said he had started to lobby the government on relaxing the restrictions. ‘It will be a window. Once it closes, there will be no other big good opportunities,’ he said.

Netcom In, Telecom Out

4/16/2007, Although China Telecom and China Netcom today won the local bidding of Chinese e-government backbone network services order at the same time, they didn't get the same success in overseas market.

For China Netcom, after they build Japan branch last month, they just applied for a licence in Japanese telecom market. Up to now, Netcom has 4 overseas branches located in Hongkong, US, Europe and Japan. Netcom also has 8 POPs located each in LA USA, Anahiem USA, SanFrancisco USA, Newyork USA, London UK, Frankfurt Germany, Tokyo Japan.

But In Saudi Arab's 2nd fixed line service licences applying, China Telecom failed to enter 2nd round with PCCW from Hongkong, and Verizon, Bahrain Telecom. No one knows the reason why China Telecom failed this time, but like the same failure of China Mobile on Millicom last year, it shows there is still long way before Chinese carriers on successful overseas market developing. They didn't prepare well for this.

Beijing Olympic Games welcome WiMAX

4/13/2007, Yokohama, Japan, Mr. Xie,linzhen, vice chairman of China mobile communication association, told the audience in a public discourse that Beijing would build wireless broadband network for 2008 Olympic games. Before 2nd quarter of year 2008, Beijing will set up 9000 WLAN access points in a 275 square kilometer, including 150 WiMAX base stations. The network will cover 90% of the Beijing city. Xie also said ChinaComm (www.cect-chinacomm.com.cn) would be one of the WiMAX services providers. ChinaComm owns 3.5GHz spectrum, they also had a plan to provide this service in another 28 cities of mainland China.
According to ChinaComm, they will focous the WiMAX service on enterprise customers, the service price will be similar to ADSL price rate.
Nortel CTO, John J. Roese who is visting Tsinghua University in Beijing now, said Nortel wanted to be the supplier for this project.

Tietong got licence on international services

4/11/2007, China Tietong(Railcom) today announced that they had got the licences on international telecommunication services. A spokeman from Tietong said their new licence supported them to have international voice, data, internet services. From this new licencs, Tietong can save millions of RMB each year on international service operating cost.

In order to support international railway operating, Tietong has build cross-border cable in the cities of Shenzhen, Suifenhe, Manzhouli, erlianhaote etc, to make communication with North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, HongKong special zone etc. Totally, Tietong owns 10Gbps international communication capacity.

Before Tietong, China telecom, China Mobilcom, China Unicom and China Netcom all had similar licences.

Photop and Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics Create Joint Lab

4/10/2007，Fuzhou Fujian, China，Photop Technologies, Inc., a key component supplier and leading manufacturer of Fiber Optics Communications, Projection & Display, and Photonics products, today announces Photop Tehnologies and Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics will jointly establish a lab for photonics technologies with applications in fiber optics communications, lasers and opto-electronics.
Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics ( WNLO) is one of the five national laboratories in China, which were sponsored by the Ministry of Science & Technology, P.R.C. in November of 2003. WNLO aims at constructing a scientific research platform of large-scale, which covers many disciplines, so as to promote the scientific innovation.
"By Combining both Photop and WNLO's advantages in industry and scientific research," stated Sunny Sun, President of Photop, "The joint lab will help Photop to develop innovative technology and science research. I believe both Photop and WNLO will benefit from the cooperation."
Among the main objectives of the joint lab are to anticipate scientific and technological advances, and establish industrial and scientific partnerships.
Photop Technologies, Inc.（www.photoptech.com ）

Can Cable operator be a new telecom carrier in China?

4/9/2007, In the NGN summit hold in Beijing several days ago, Mr. Wei,leping, CTO of China Telecom urged government to let them enter video services a.s.a.p, as an exchange, he said cabel operators in China can be a new telecom service provider.

According to No.82 Decree of State Council of the People's Republic of China approved in year 1999, Telecom service providers cann't develope video services, and Cable operators cann't have voice services. But after nearly 8 years, convergence has become the center of telecom services, More and more peoples call on a reform on this decree.

Without video services, without mobile services, today's China Telecom faces hugh profit decrease. They are eager to have new 3G licence and to enter video services. But first, they have to bread the barricade set up by No. 82 decree.

Can we see this reform in the short future? Will the cable operators like to be a new telecom service provider? Let us wait...............

Does China Mobile really have interest on TD-SCDMA?

4/6/2007, according to Shanghai Security Journal, China Mobile just began a new GSM purchasing which is worth 35billion RMB. These equipments will be used to upgrade the total national network. The question is this purchasing is nearly at the same time with China Mobile's first purchasing on TD-SCDMA 3G equipments. Also the 35 billion purchasing amount exceeds the 26.7billion TD purchasing a lot. Local analysts pointed out that the GSM purchasing meant China Mobile had other considerations on TD-SCDMA network, Maybe they didn't really have interest on it.

New manufacturing base of Huawei and ZTE

4/3/2007, According to first financial Journal, Both Huawei and ZTE are working on their big new manufacturing base. A new industry park of ZTE will begin to operate from year 2008. Huawei invested 2billion RMB on their Dongguan and Langfang base.

ZTE's new park has a 440,000 square meter area with capacity supporting 15,000 employees. ZTE spokesman said the park was an important part of ZTE's next step strategy.

Although Huawei denied the exist of their Dongguan and Langfang manufacturing base, but according to local government, Huawei will build a cellphone base with revenue of 80billion in Songshan lake, Dongguan. In Langfang, Huawei will focous on optical network equipments etc. There will be three world-class factory with total revenue 10billion RMB.

China Mobile:1.1 billion USD in PAKTEL

3/14/2007， During a meeting with minister of Pakisitan information technology ministry, Mr. Guo,yonghong, president of China Mobile Pakistan branch, told local media China mobile has invested 700 million USD in Paktel up to now. This number includes the 300million purchasing cost. China Mobile will invest 400million USD in Paktel later this year. All the money will be used to upgrade Paktel's infrastrure. China Mobile promosed they would build 2500 base staiions each year for Paktel.

Unicom embraces WiMAX Yes or Not

3/13/2007，This is an inside story. China Unicom has decided to launch WiMAX building, also they have choosed the equipment suppliers. The related proposals have been distributed to Unicom's branches in each province.
After a nearly 1 year trial on WiMAX, Unicom got below conclusions: "As an fixed wireless broadband acess system, 802.16d WiMAX has good communication quality within viewable distance, also it can guarantee some quality outside viewable distance. WiMAX is a good supplement to wireline access. It can support packed data service, it is very helpful on solving the shortage of access resource of China Unicom" .
Surprisingly, Those big names in WiMAX field does not enter Unicom's supplier list. State-hold Datang and Putian became the winners. Datang began their broadband wireless access project on October 2005, they also made a show during last year's ITU Hongkong exhibition. But seems the equipments they will provide to Unicom come from their OEM partner.
It is still not clear what kind of service Unicom will provide based on WiMAX, also it is not clear what kind of customers they will aim at. According to a BUPT professor, China unicom has the license on 3.5GHz spectrum. Their WiMAX service will possiblly based on this spectrum.

Just one day after this blog, another local media reported that China Unicom denied this WiMAX launch today. A spokeman of China Unicom told the media that they only made some trial, not large scale commercial launch. Both China mobile and China Unicom, even China telecom and China netcom had made similar trials.

Huawei and ZTE:when without tax refund

3/10/2007, In last July's Heavy Reading report, "Remade in China: Huawei and the Future of the Global Telecom Market," The report’s author, Heavy Reading chief analyst Scott Clavenna pointed out that low pricing was the key factor for Huawei's success in overseas market.
Behind this low pricing, tax refund policy of Chinese government played a very important role. In year 2005, ZTE's profit befor tax is 1.5billion RMB, 30% of it came from tax refund.
Because of China’s growing trade deficit, the country’s international trading partners and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have been pressuring it to reform tax refund policies that have benefited Huawei and other Chinese companies. From January 1st, China adopted new tax policy. Under this policy, ZTE's first quarter net profit plummted 86% comparted to 1st quarter in year 2004, Huwei then refused to announce their profit. In year 2005, Huawei accquired nearly 3billion RMB tax refund from government.
In China's No. 11 five year plan, the government has promised to further reform its tax refund policy. It is predicted Huawei and ZTE will face further profit presser in the future.
People begun to ask, without tax refund, How will Huawei and ZTE develope? If compare profit margin, they have no difference with those traditional industries.

Shanghai Telecom has 150K IPTV subscribers

x IPTV subscribers3/10/2007,according to shanghai local media, since offical launch in September last year, Shanghai Telecom has already 128K subscribers, also there are 20K subscribers are wating in line to be installed.

A Memo of China Netcom

3/8/2007， Several days ago, the two largest fixed line carrier in mainland China, China Netcom and China Telecom signed a "stop competition" contract. According to this contract, China Netcom will stop the expansion in northern China, and China Telecom will do the same in Northern China.
But Will the two carriers follow the contract? Seems it is not so easy. A memo of China Netcom recently published on Internet showed us some hinder information.
The memo is named "Measures on dealing with new contract between China Netcom and China Telecom". In this memo, China Netcom demanded each subsidary company in southern China should take care of protecting their key customers, all ISPs, all distributers should not on the exchange list with China Telecom. At same time, in Northern China, they should try best to avoid new customer losing to China Telecom.
How to look at this memeo? The so called "stop competition contract" already violated the free market principle, that is a very ridiculous contract. Compared to that, this memo is in compliance to the free market spirit.

3G on NPC

3/6/2007， The on-going fifth Session of the Tenth National People’s Congress also has some discussion on 3G. Deputy Shi, jixing, also as vice chairman of Chinese mobile communication union, submitted his 3G proposal yesterday noon. This is also Mr. Shi'a 5th similar proposal in recent 5 years.
In his proposal, Shi suggest to release 3G license a.s.a.p, otherwise, state resources will be depreciated further. The regime bondage is the main reason that there is not break up in 3G field in China. MII always doesn't give a clear answer on 3G, that means lack of scientific and democratic decision, there is no clear govenment responsibility defination. Shi also pointed out Chinese carriers cannot make 3G decision according to their own willing today. Too much interference by government could affect the final result. MII shouldn't only issue TD-SCDMA license, in order to solve the problem on internation roaming, WCDMA or CDMA2000 licenses should also be released.

MII's No.11 5 year plan

3/5/2006, MII published their "Information industry in the No. 11 Five year developing plan". Mr. Lou, qinjian, vice ministry of MII, said that the plan is a guilding plan for the industry from strategic, macro and full view.
According to local media, the chief idea in this plan is " promote triple play, enhance service and technology innovation ability, transform from simple service provider to mutli-service provider. "
Detailed methods to guarentee the realization of the plan include below:
Universial service fundAdjust competition structure following the 3G licences bidingEncourage Non-public investement to enter telecom industryHelp Chinses company develope overseas marketPut TD-SCDMA, IPv6, Wireline or Wireless broadband technology in advanceIntroduce Telecom Act A.S.A.P
Sounds good, but I am not very optismatic on it. Before our government can releaize it, there are still a lot of hurdles. On the other side, without open competition in local telecom market, without putting braodband a very stragegy position, the plan still cannot be compared with similar plan in US, in Japan , in Korea, even in Taiwan.

Who will have the largest share of China 3G market?

3/2/2007, According to local news papers, China Mobile will ask equipment manufactures to provide informal bids for TD-SCDMA network building. Earlier reports revealed that the TD-SCDMA procurement tenders will be worth CNY26.7 billion (USD3.45 billion). China Mobile is reported to be building commercial TD-SCDMA networks in eight cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Qinhuangdao and Xiamen. Five of them will be the host city of Olympic 2008. It was predicated that China Mobile will launch the 3G service after October of this year.
But who will have the largest share of this big TD-SCDMA cake? Since it is a Chinses 3G standard, Chinese equipments manufacters will have more advantages in the coming bid. Huawei, ZTE, Datang, Putian, Shanghai Bell all hope to have bigger share. Will they success?
Although as the bellweather of Chinese communication equipments supplier, Huawei are not sure they can have the largest share. First because their focus was always on WCDMA, Secondly their joint-venture company with Simens on TD-SCDMA base station. But after merge of Siemens and Nokia, the future of this joint-venture company became unclear.
Before Chinese new year, it was reported ZTE will have more than 30% share of this big bid. ZTE begun their TD-SCDMA R&D as early as in year 2001. As the second largest equipment supplier in China, they are confident they will have better opporuntiy this time. They also have some cooperation with Erission in this field.
It was Datang who first publish the TD-SCDMA standard. But because of shortage of fund, Observers are always pessimistic on that they can get bigger share. If the coming bid can make this company survive longer, it will be very good for them. Maybe the biggest advantage on this field is their cooperation with Shanghai Bell.
Putian cooperated with Nokia on TD-SCDMA， their fund situation is better than Datang, but their technology is the worst compared with others. It is sure that they will not become the leader, but anyway, they will not get a small share.

Chinese ROHS

2/27/2007, Extreme Networks today announced that their products have achieved compliance with China's new environmental regulation, scheduled to take effect March 1, 2007. Extreme Networks® complete portfolio of networking solutions, including its award-winning BlackDiamond® and Summit® Ethernet switching platforms, manufactured on or after March 1, 2007, will be compliant withthis regulation.
China RoHS legislation, issued by the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry (MII)， requires the labeling of Electronic Information Products with a China-compliant graphic and date of manufacture, declaring and documenting the hazardous material content of our products for six specific chemicals, and the labeling of outer packaging with appropriate recycling symbols.
The real name of the so called China ROHS is "Method on pollution controlling of Electronic information products". Accroding to this method, all products without hazardous material will have a gree e label, and those products with hazardoous material will have a orange warning label. Basicly, all hazardous material that EU ROHS regulation doesn't allow to use is limited in China ROHS regulation.

Where is Chinese Vivene Reding?

2/26/2007, According to local newspaper, before Chinese new year, the only two fixed line carriers in mainland China, China Telecom and China Netcom agreed to enter a "stop competiting" agreement. Both companies promise that they will not make new investment in other side's territory. That means China Telecom will not develope new business in northern China, and China Netcom will not build new fixed line in Southern China.
Since the old China Telecom was seperated into new China Telecom and China Netcom in year 2004, both carriers try to enter the other side's market. But because China does not have a local access network open policy, both carriers faced great difficulty to have success on this. What they only can do is make price war. Finally, China Telecom and China Netcom do not want to play this game again. They want a truce agreement.
If I am an emaploee of China Telecom or China Netcom, maybe I will think this kind of agreeement is very reasonable. But as an observer, I find this agreement isn't suitable, just because it stops the competition. China can not always have one or two monopolized carriers on basic telecom market, Chinese customer hope to have more benefits from competition.
With long time monopoly experience, Chinese state-hold carriers always want to continue their monopoly. And Chinese government is always short-sighted and they don't have any effective method to stop this kind of monopoly. Maybe we want to ask: Where is Chinese Vivene Reding？