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Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2007 45
Telecom news
Mobile operators in India who have
lined up a $20 billion programme to
expand their networks would need to
install an additional 264,000 towers
across the country, according to
GTL Infrastructure, the Mumbai-
based company providing support
to the operators. As reported by
IndiaTimes.com (10th June), GTL’s
chairman has said that, given the
large capital expenditure required,
the operators would do well to
reduce their costs by sharing the
infrastructure network. Although a
proven model globally, third-party
shared telecom infrastructure is
a relatively new concept for India.
GTL also pointed out that the
demand for towers will increase
several times over with the
introduction of the third-generation
(3G) technology which supports
higher data transfer speeds.
The largest phone company in
Saudi Arabia announced on 27th
June that it was acquiring a 25%
interest in Maxis Communications,
of Malaysia, for $3 billion. Saudi
Telecom Co, based in Kuala
Lumpur, bought the Maxis stake
from a Malaysian national, T
Ananda Krishnan, who in May had
offered to buy the 40% that he
did not already control. Maxis, the
largest mobile phone operator in
Malaysia, has 14 million subscribers
there and in India and is looking
for further growth in developing
markets. Under the agreement,
Saudi Telecom will also acquire a
51% stake in PT Natrindo Telepon
Selular, the Maxis subsidiary in
Indonesia, the company said.
To put an end to five weeks of
strikes, Deutsche Telekom on 21st
June announced an agreement
with the Ver.di union that allows the
company to set up the customer
service unit T-Service, part of a
cost-cutting programme aimed
at saving $1.2 billion. As reported
by Bloomberg News, Deutsche
Telekom pledged not to sell the
unit before 2010. For their part,
50,000 employees would take a
6.5% pay cut and lengthen their
work week by four hours. As many
as 16,000 workers a day had
gone on strike across Germany to
protest Deutsche Telekom’s initial
plan to cut pay by 9%.
The big US telecommunications
equipment maker Motorola said on
30th May that it would cut another
4,000 jobs, or more than 6% of its
already shrunken global workforce.
The company had been in the
process of eliminating 3,500 jobs
as part of a two-year plan to save
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$400 million. Motorola said the
newly announced cuts, together
with other cost-control measures,
would save another $600 million
in 2008. Its workforce, which
stood at 150,000 worldwide as
recently as 2000, had declined
to 66,000 at the beginning of
2007. Illinois-based Motorola
had been regaining market share
in the cellphone business from
Samsung, of South Korea, among
others, when two years of strong
momentum collapsed.
Nokia Siemens Networks, the
world’s third-biggest maker of
telecommunications equipment,
intends to become first or second
in the North American market, its
chief executive Simon Beresford-
Wylie said at a conference in
Toronto on 12th June. Nokia Oyj,
of Finland, and Siemens AG, of
Germany, combined their phone
equipment units in April to form
a company that competes with
Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson AB.
The venture, with annual sales of
$22.7 billion, is cutting 15% of its
workforce, or 9,000 jobs, by 2010
to reduce costs. Mr Beresford-
Wylie sees broadband Internet
as presenting a ‘tremendous
opportunity’ deriving from billions
of connections by 2015. “Nokia
Siemens is number one or number
two in all markets except North
America, where we’re sixth,” he
told Bloomberg News (13th June).
“We are determined to have a
position in North America that is
representative of our global position
generally.”
In other news of Nokia Siemens
Networks, the Helsinki-based
company has won a $500 million
contract from India’s fifth-largest
mobile phone service provider
to manage and expand its com-
munications network. As reported
by NewsEdge, the two-year contract
from Idea Cellular (Mumbai) requires
Nokia Siemens to supply and
service communication equipment
and help the Indian company to
double its existing capacity.
Idea Cellular has 14.56 million
customers and operates in 11 of
the 23 mobile phone service zones
that make up the Indian market.
Nokia Siemens will be involved in
expansion of network capacity in
six of these zones, according to a
joint statement by the companies.
India, the world’s fastest-growing
mobile phone market, has been
adding more than 5 million con-
nections every month over the
past year.
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As reported by Telecom AsiaDaily,
the first of two deals signed by
Alcatel-Lucent with two Chinese
operators is an agreement to
provide mobile communications
solutions and services to China
Mobile. Arranged through the
Chinese company Alcatel Shanghai
Bell, this engages Alcatel-Lucent
to provide $340 million worth of
GSM/GPRS/EDGE radio and core
network equipment.
Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent also
said it has a separate, $120 million
agreement with China Unicom
that secures its position as the
vendor with the largest installed
base in that company’s CDMA
network. The range of projects to
be fulfilled includes a cdma2000
1xEV-DO Rev. high-speed data
network upgrade for the China
Unicom network in Macau, as
well as expansion of the CDMA
core network, radio solutions, and
applications in support of China
Unicom’s broader programme of
mobile network enhancement.
The China Unicom agreement also
calls for Alcatel-Lucent to provide
GSM/GPRS/EDGE core and radio
network solutions and optical
network components in support of
GSM service offerings.
Acquisitions
ECI Telecom, an Israeli maker
of telecommunications equipment,
has agreed to be bought by the
Swarth Group and the Ashmore
Group for $1.2 billion, Bloomberg
News reported on 3rd July.
Ashmore Investment Management
is a London-based emerging
markets investor with assets of
about $29 billion, while Swarth is
controlled by an Israeli technology
entrepreneur. ECI is based in
Petah Tikva, Israel.
The Macquarie Communications
Infrastructure Group, of Australia,
said on 3rd July that its Macquarie
Bank consortium has agreed to
acquire Global Tower Partners,
an American wireless tower
operator, from the New York-based
investment firm Blackstone Group
for $1.43 billion.
Global Tower leases its 2,500
towers and 4,600 rooftop sites
in the United States and Puerto
Rico to wireless communications
operators including AT&T, Sprint-
Nextel, T-Mobile, and Verizon
Wireless.
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