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.