WCA May 2008

operating systems on Nokia phones. The purchase follows Nokia’s $8.1 billion acquisition in August of Navteq, an American maker of digital map data. France Télécom said that its net ✆ ✆ profit for 2007 went up 52%, to $9.28 billion, on better margins and lower taxes. The company attributed the rise in profit mainly to good sales in its mobile phone businesses, but also to some financial charges. Revenue for 2007 rose to $77.99 billion, helped by growth in France Télécom’s mobile phone operations across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. nd March the Virgin Group, of Britain, announced that it will become a franchisee of Tata Teleservices, a domestic telecom player providing CDMA cellular services in India. Virgin Mobile will target the 400 million Indians between the ages of 13 and 30 who, Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson says, have been ignored by the country’s current telecom operators. Hence Virgin Mobile’s catchy tagline Think hatke — Mumbai argot for ‘Think outside of the box’. The company will be offering handsets by Nokia, Samsung, and Huawai Techno- logies that will cost between $60 and $120 each. (Business Week , 3 rd March) Ericsson has been selected by ✆ ✆ E-Plus, the third-largest mobile operator in Germany, to expand and upgrade its 3G network. The deal covers expansion and enhancement of the microwave transmission network that delivers E-Plus mobile data services in most parts of Germany. Under the three-year agreement, reported by telecomasia.net on 6 th March, Ericsson will add new 3G base stations to increase network coverage and capacity. The Swedish company will also provide network technology consul- ting services to E-Plus which, with 13.6 million German subscribers in 2007, trailed only the Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Mobile and Vodafone, of Britain. E-Plus is ownedbyDutch telecommunications operator KPN. On 2 ✆ ✆

president of Tata Communications’ retail business unit, in a statement. As reported by W David Gardner on InformationWeek , initially the WiMax services will be made available to commercial and residential customers in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Cochin, Chandi- garh and Kolkata. (“Tata Picks Telsima to Deploy WiMax for 110 Cities in India,” 4 th March) Mr Gardner noted that Taiwan, too, is racing to deploy an ambitious $664 million WiMax network and has enlisted the aid of several US companies in its effort. The WiMax effort in the United States has sputtered as its major nationwide deployment, by Sprint, has been slowed by a series of mishaps and problems at the mobile phone company. “Once planning to spend $5 billion on its US rollout,” wrote Mr Gardner, “Sprint has recently pulled back on the effort as it seeks additional funding and partners for the project.” Elsewhere in telecom . . . An investigation continues into the ✆ ✆ cause of damage to four under- sea telecom cables that caused outages in parts of the Middle East and south Asia last winter. From 23 rd January to 4 th February, in what may be an extraordi- nary coincidence, five high-speed submarine communications cables were damaged, leading to disrup- tion of Internet and telephone services. The Indian telecom Flag disclosed on 7 th February that a fifth rupture, to the Falcon cable between the United Arab Emirates and Oman, was caused by a ship’s anchor. In late February there were reports of yet another outage, affecting a fibre optic connection between Singapore and Jakarta. According to the International Cable Protection Committee, undersea cables carry about 95% of the world’s telephone and Internet traffic. The 86-member group works with fishing, mining and drilling companies to prevent damage to submarine cables, which transmit information faster and more eco- nomically than it can be moved by satellite. Undersea cable trans- mission is gaining market share, the group said. In its five-year OC (optical compo- ✆ ✆ nent) forecast for WAN, datacom, and access components, Ovum RHK on 25 th February projected that

strong bandwidth demand will drive the OC market to $6 billion in 2012. “Bandwidth demand is strong in all segments of the market as carriers deploy new networks to support rapid growth in bandwidth intensive services,” said Daryl Inniss, vice president of the ICT (information, communication and technology) consultancy. “The OC suppliers are challenged with managing a torrid market appetite for new products. Fortunately, the demand exists. But OC suppliers must ramp up production, manage suppliers, con- tract manufacturers, and introduce and inventory new products to maximise revenues and margins.” It appears possible, even probable, ✆ ✆ that Bain Capital (Boston) and the Chinese network equipment com- pany Huawei will renew their $2.2 billion bid for 3Com (of Marlborough, also in Massachusetts) whose TippingPoint subsidiary sup- plies the US government with some intrusion-detection systems. In February, Bain and Huawei withdrew their application to buy 3Com after a committee of the US Treasury Department – sounding a familiar theme when a Chinese company is party to such an overture – raised security concerns. Since the proposed acquisition was announced in the autumn of 2007, American lawmakers have expressed concern about Huawei’s stake in the venture. On 4 th March, however, the Wall Street Journal wrote that, in their eagerness to secure government clearance, the applicants will propose that the deal limit Huawei’s access to some core US-related network products, including certain Ethernet items. Huawei would still hold a 16.5% stake and the purchase price is expected to remain the same, the paper reported. In their revived bid Bain and Huawei also proposed selling TippingPoint, which 3Com had already planned to spin off. Nokia, the world’s largest manu- ✆ ✆ facturer of mobile phones, on 29 th January announced that it had agreed to buy Trolltech, a Norwegian maker of software products, for $154 million. The Finnish company said Trolltech’s set of software development tools would allow it to create new applications compatible with the

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Wire & Cable ASIA – May/June 2008