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Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2012
31
Telecom
news
Americas
that the interruption
affected approximately 30%-40%
of BlackBerry customers in that
region. He said that customers
of Entel Chile and the Telecom
Italia units TIM Brasil and Personal
Argentina
were
hit
hardest
because those companies have
their services connected directly
to the network operations centre
(NOC) in Slough, England. Services
dependent on NOCs in the US
were out for only a few hours on
12
th
October.
The outage – resulting from a
shift of the system onto a backup
switch after the failure of a core
switch – and the ensuing major
backlog of messages infuriated
users across the globe. On 19
th
October, RIM announced that it
was offering a selection of premium
apps worth more than $100 to
every subscriber who suffered a
service disruption. In the face of
a barrage of criticism on social
networks,
the
Ontario-based
company was able to look on the
bright side. Mr Lino told Patrick
Nixon of
Business News Americas
(19
th
October), “I even believe it is a
good opportunity for RIM because
we can showcase some of [our]
applications.”
✆
✆
“We’ve played very low-key
but now we are ready,” Robin
Lee, chairman of Axin Ltd, told
CommsDay Australasia
. Together
with partner Huawei Marine
Networks, headquartered in Tianjin,
the Chinese-backed consortium
plans to construct a $100 million
Australia-New Zealand subsea
communications cable to connect
Sydney and Auckland. Work on the
1,400-mile trans-Tasman link was
to have begun before the new year.
Time to completion was estimated
at 20 months. Axin, formed in 2010,
is a market representative of China
Communications Service, itself a
51%-owned subsidiary of China
Telecom.
CommsDay
’s Petroc
Wilton wrote (19
th
September) that
the proposed cable would offer
New Zealand firms a link to Sydney
in addition to the existing Southern
Cross cable and the planned
Pacific Fibre cable – “and from
there outward via links like PPC-1
or the Australia-Japan cable.”
✆
✆
A report in the
Economic Times
(Mumbai) indicated that Verizon
Business – the $17.3 billion unit
of the US telecom major Verizon
Communications – is considering
introducing its enterprise services
in India as part of a broader
corporate investment strategy
for the country. In the absence of
legacy platforms and strict regula-
tion, Verizon apparently sees
opportunity in mobile services in
India. In New Delhi for meetings
with customers and potential
clients, Verizon Business president
Robert A Toohey told the EC
(19
th
October) that the company’s
perception of local demand had
influenced its thinking. Said Mr
Toohey: “We talked about how [we
might] do things here first instead
of in Asia, Europe, or Japan.”
✆
✆
Samsung is believed to have
beaten Apple, of the US, in
smartphone shipments in the
third quarter of 2011. As reported
by Dylan Bushell-Embling on
telecomasia.net (October 21
st
),
a
Wall Street Journal
source
supplied the information that the
South Korean vendor shipped over
20 million smartphones during the
quarter that ended 30
th
September.
That total, if substantiated, com-
fortably outstrips the 17.1 million
smartphone sales rung up by
Apple in its own September
quarter. Finland’s Nokia, in third
place, said it sold 16.8 million
smartphones in the quarter.
In the
Inquirer
, the London-based
technology newsletter, Lawrence
Latif
observed
that,
while
Samsung might have shipped
more smartphones than Apple, it
has a large portfolio of products.
He wrote: “Apple, on the other
hand, managed to reach its 17.1
million devices sold with just the
iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4,
[and] making a lot more cash in
the process.” Even so, Samsung’s
recent smartphone advances are
very striking. According to Strategy
Analytics, in the second quarter of
last year the Korean electronics
giant displaced Nokia as the
world’s No 2 in smartphones. The
global research and consulting firm
had placed Samsung’s year-earlier
smartphone sales, for 2Q10, at just
3 million.
✆
✆
The International Telecommuni-
cations Union in Geneva announced
that agreement had been reached
on the key standards for ultra-high
definition television (UHDTV), setting
the stage for serious investment
in the technology by European
manufacturers and broadcasters.
UHDTV sets will have a screen
resolution of 33 million pixels (7,680
by 4,320), for 16 times greater
refinement than in high-definition
(HDTV) sets. The BBC plans to
show the opening ceremony of
the 2012 Olympics in ultra-high
definition on three giant screens in
London, Glasgow and Bradford.
✆
✆
Research commissioned by a
number of leading Internet content
providers – including the BBC and
Yahoo! – has found that products
such as theirs do not cause
network bottlenecks, as claimed
by some Internet service providers
(ISPs). The new research, published
5
th
October by London-based Plum
Consulting, rejects the assertion
that telecom providers’ costs are
ballooning because of data growth.
Instead, it suggests that online
content and applications providers
drive the demand for broadband
connectivity which yielded fixed
and mobile broadband revenues
of approximately $207 billion in
Europe in 2010.
As reviewed by Joseph O’Halloran
of RapidTVNews, the Plum report
states that, without the content
providers’ considerable investment
in innovative consumer services to
stimulate the uptake of high-speed
broadband, telecoms would have
experienced a rapid decline in
revenues. Taking a strong stand
in favour of an Open Internet, the
report warns that investment in
next-generation broadband would
not necessarily increase, and
could decrease, if content and
applications providers are required
to pay for access to consumers.
✆
✆
Pakistan Telecommunications Co
Ltd (PTCL) announced a net profit
of $16.2 million for the first quarter
(to 30
th
September) of its current
fiscal year, showing growth of
seven per cent over the previous
year. Revenue was reported at
$167 million. In the quarter, PTCL
launched Pakistan’s first-ever 3G
enabled tablet with built-in EVO
wireless broadband. Powered
by the Google Android Froyo 2.2
operating system, “3G EVO Tab”
supports Wi-Fi for customers in
over a hundred Pakistani cities.
PTCL commands close to a 90 per
cent share of the national market.