WCA January 2007

29 / 63

From the Americas
27 Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2007
The roll-out also gives T-Mobile an advantage in
competing with Sprint and other cellular carriers
trying to develop similar services. The first new
phones were made available to T-Mobile customers
in Seattle, Washington, on a trial basis.
Carlyle Group, the Washington-based global private
equity investment firm with at least $44.3 billion of
equity capital under management, on 10th October
said it had agreed to buy a 33.5% stake in Hyundai’s
cable unit for $168.6 million. Hyundai, of South
Korea, said it would retain a 65% stake in the unit,
Hyundai Communications and Network. Former
US president George Bush was senior advisor to
Carlyle’s Asia Advisory Board from April 1998 to
October 2003; and current President George Bush
served briefly on the board of a Carlyle unit, giving it
up in 1992 to run for governor of Texas.
Before the next blackout
The power grid serving the US
and Canada is inadequate
US companies are not building power plants and power
lines fast enough to meet growing demand, according to
a group assigned by the federal government to assure
proper operation of the nation’s power grid. In its annual
report, released on 16th October, the North American
Electric Reliability Council (NERC) said that over the
course of the next two to three years the amount of
power that could be generated or transmitted in the
US on peak-usage days would drop below the target
levels for ensuring an uninterrupted power supply from
Texas to New England. After the blackout of 2003, which
covered a vast swath of the US Midwest and Northeast,
as well as the Canadian province of Ontario, Congress
inaugurated a process that would eventually give the
council authority to fine American companies that did
not follow certain operating standards. It is seeking a
similar designation in Canada, since the two countries
share power supplies – and problems.
Since its establishment in 1965 the council has often
issued worrisome reports but this is the first to be
officially filed with federal agencies. The president of the
council, Rick Sergel, said in a telephone interview with
the New York Times, “The situation has existed for a
long time, but we cannot let it continue.” Matthew Wald,
of the Times, noted that planning for adequate capacity
has become more difficult with the restructuring of the
electric industry in the US. He wrote, “Where a handful
of top-to-bottom companies once generated power,
transmitted it, and delivered it, hundreds of companies
are now involved in only one or two phases of the
process. At the same time, getting permits to build new
power lines has become more difficult.” (‘A Power-Grid
Report Suggests Some Dark Days Ahead,’ 16th October).
The NERC report predicts that demand will increase
by about 19% over the next 10 years in the US —
slightly less in Canada — and that the construction of
power plants and transmission lines to carry that load
will fall far short of what is needed. US utilities have
contracts with new power plants for only about a third
of the capacity that will be needed; in Canada,
❖
about two-thirds of the needed capacity is in place.
The number of miles of transmission lines, which can
help redistribute supplies, will increase by only about
7%, NERC said.
Governor Brian Schweitzer, of Montana,
announced plans on 23rd October for a $2-billion
power transmission line to carry energy from his
northwestern state to the fast-growing cities of the
Southwest. The line would run from the coal fields of
Montana to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix,
its electricity created by either wind power or
synthetic gas derived from coal to meet the new
clean energy standards in the Southwest. Developers
hope to complete the project by 2011, said
Brad Thompson, a vice-president of TransCanada,
an independent power and infra-structure company.
The line would carry enough power for about
3.5 million people, Mr Thompson said.
In brief
An informal survey conducted in mid-October by the
Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE)
disclosed that almost 90% of its 2,500 members
worldwide were not aware that US customs officials
have legal authority to scrutinise the contents of a
traveller’s laptop computers and even confiscate
it, without offering any reason. Some 87% of ACTE
members expressed themselves less likely to carry
confidential business or personal information on
international trips now that they know a laptop may
be seized or its contents examined at customs and
immigration checkpoints in the US.
Susan Gurley, ACTE’s executive director, said, “We
are telling our members that they should prepare for
the eventuality that this could happen and they have
to think more about how they handle proprietary
information. Potentially, this is going to have a real
effect on how international business is conducted.”
ACTE is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia,
with regional offices in Brussels and Singapore. Its
membership includes business travel executives
in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific,
Canada, Latin America, and the United States.
Mandarin-speaking nannies from China are in great
demand in affluent American households whose
children are being groomed by ambitious parents
for success in the global social and business
sphere decades hence. Au Pair in America, a 20-
year-old agency in Stamford, Connecticut, that
sponsors nannies willing to work in the US, reported
having received no requests for Chinese au pairs
until 2004; since then, it has received 1,400. Au
Pair in America, a unit of the American Institute for
Foreign Study, a privately owned US corporation
with wholly-owned overseas subsidiaries, ‘matches
carefully screened young women and nannies
from around the world who provide live-in child
care during a year-long cultural exchange.’ One of
11 such agencies sanctioned by the Office of
Exchange Coordination and Designation of the US
State Department, it has begun to recruit in China.
More relaxed US regulations for cultural-exchange
visas for Chinese are easing the recruitment effort.
Dorothy Fabian – Features Editor
❖
❖
❖