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Wire & Cable ASIA – May/June 2009
25
Elsewhere in telecom . . .
The first quarter delivered a
✆
✆
pleasant surprise to Mediatek,
the leading supplier of chips used
in low-priced mobile phones
sold in China. As a result of
robust demand the Taiwanese
company said it expected sales
in the quarter to be some 8% to
13% higher than in the “dismal”
fourth quarter of 2008. According
to the Financial Times (London),
the revision upward came as PC
makers were reporting a surprise
recovery in Chinese demand,
suggesting that Beijing’s efforts to
stimulate domestic industry might
be beginning to take effect.
As reported in telecomasia.net
(5
th
March), Mediatek, the biggest
chip design house in Taiwan, had
in fact forecast a drop of between
8% and 16% in first-quarter sales.
Cheng Ming-kai, head of tech-
nology research for the brokerage
house CLSA in Taipei, was quoted
as saying that Mediatek’s sales
had probably been boosted by
China’s plan to encourage spending
in lower-income rural areas by
subsidising purchases of hand-
sets, among other select electronic
products. Chinese state media have
reported that Beijing has budgeted
$3 billion for such subsidies in the
current year.
Ericsson, of Sweden, has signed
✆
✆
a three-year frame agreement
with Indonesia’s leading mobile
operator Telekomunikasi Selular
Indonesia (Telkomsel) to supply,
deploy, and integrate GSM/EDGE
and WCDMA/HSPA radio access
networks (RAN) in Indonesia. The
Swedish company said 4
th
March
that Indonesia, with a population
around 240 million, is seeing a
growing demand for mobile voice
and data services.
According to China’s Ministry
✆
✆
of Industry and Information
Technology (MIIT), the country
will discontinue PHS, a low-end
wireless phone service that
once drew 100 million users, by
2011 to clear the airwaves for its
homegrown third-generation (3G)
wireless service, TD-SCDMA.
Under the new directive, a ministry
spokesman said, the country’s
telecom
regulator
instructed
operators to clear spectra currently
used for personal handphone
system (PHS) service.
As reported from Beijing by
Michael Wei, of Reuters, the move
will affect two former fixed-line
carriers, China Telecom and
China Netcom, which previously
used PHS (known locally as
Xiaolingtong, or “Little Smart”) as
a low-cost alternative to mobile
services offered by China Unicom
and China Mobile. China Netcom
was merged with Unicom in a
recent industry overhaul, giving
the former access to the latter’s
wireless networks.
In the same restructuring, China
Telecom received a license to
directly offer 3G mobile services.