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www.read-wca.comWire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2017
From the Americas
MyRepublic, which started fund raising in May, hopes
to raise $100 million to realise its telecommunications
aspirations in Singapore and three other markets. Mobile
service launches are planned for 2018 in Australia, New
Zealand and Indonesia. The cash will also be used to install
optical fibre infrastructure in Indonesia to grow its fibre
broadband customer base.
In Singapore, MyRepublic has 70,000 fibre broadband
subscribers. The company aims to have a five per cent
mobile market share within five years, and to be profitable
by mid-2018.
More MVNO news
Mexico has a new mobile virtual network operator (MVNO).
Oui Movil, a unit of domestic retail group Elektra, will offer
both 3G and 4G connectivity from day one.
TeleGeography
revealed in March 2015 that Grupo Elektra
was to lease capacity on Telcel’s network. Elektra, which
sells electronic goods and household appliances, and also
runs Banco Azteca through its financial division, is owned
by Ricardo Salinas Pliego, who exited the Mexican wireless
sector in 2015 when he sold his interest in Iusacell to AT&T
Inc.
Elsewhere, Snail Mobile, China’s largest MVNO has revealed
that its subscriber base has reached ten million. The unit,
which is a division of the Suzhou Snail Digital Technology
Company, commonly known as Snail Games, describes
itself as the industry’s premier ‘gaming MNVO’ and offers
monthly gaming privileges to subscribers.
China’s second largest MVNO, YuanTel, has confirmed that
it now has eight million active users. Clarifying its Internet of
Things (IoT) ambitions at Mobile World Congress Shanghai
in June, the virtual operator noted that its “installed capacity
of front-end in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) exceeded 300,000
units, and the subscription base for its IoT accounts is now
more than 100,000.”
Fallout from Paris pact falling out
President Donald Trump’s recent decision to withdraw
the USA from the 2015 global agreement to fight climate
change provoked anger from world leaders, environment
groups and heads of industry alike.
“The regrettable announcement by the USA makes it
inevitable that Europe must facilitate a cost efficient
and economically feasible climate policy to remain
internationally competitive,” said Matthias Wissmann,
president of the German auto industry lobby group VDA,
in a statement. (The VDA represents carmakers including
BMW, Volkswagen and the Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler.)
“The preservation of our competitive position is the
precondition for successful climate protection. This
correlation is often underestimated,” Mr Wissmann added.
The VDA said electricity and energy prices are already
higher in Germany than in the USA, putting Germany at a
disadvantage.
The VDA’s warning comes as German chancellor Angela
Merkel, a strong advocate of the global pact to curb the
emission of climate change gases, said there was no turning
back from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
On the other hand…
After 2016, a record year for USA solar installations, the
first quarter of 2017 saw the installation of over 2GW of
new solar capacity, a quarter of it on individual rooftops,
according to data released by the Solar Energy Industries
Association (SEIA) and GTM Research.
It puts solar second to natural gas overall for new US
electricity installations in the quarter, with only a two per
cent year-on-year decline.
This is happening under President Trump, who has
proposed to cut solar energy research funding, rescind the
Clean Power Plan, and bring the USA from the Paris climate
agreement, and whose Energy Department is undertaking
a study of the USA grid that critics claim is aimed at
undermining energy sources such as wind and solar.
Abigail Ross Hopper, president and chief executive of the
solar association, explained the apparent anomaly:
There are state-level incentives to add renewables to the
grid
The majority of the projects that came online in 2017
were procured under the Obama administration in 2016
Solar power keeps getting cheaper
The 30 per cent solar investment tax credit has been
extended through to 2021
“The majority of projects are economic, not policy-driven,
at this point, so as the prices have gone down, installations
have gone up,” said Ms Hopper. But installations aren’t
expected to slow down. The industry projects there will be a
total of 12.6GW of solar installed in 2017, which falls a little
short of 2016’s record but is still a very impressive figure.
Could Trump’s decision to withdraw the USA from the
Paris climate agreement have unexpected and surprising
consequences?
Tom Werner, chief executive of US solar company
SunPower, told the
Washington Post
that Trump’s
withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement just poses
“one more challenge” for the industry, adding: “It’s likely that
the industry will sort that economic challenge out.
“I think the broader picture is still quite positive for solar, I
just think there’s a little bit of friction by not supporting
the Paris accord … and the general demeanour of the
administration.”
Werner noted concerns within the industry regarding a loss
of support from the Energy Department for renewables or
solar projects, but he argued that homeowners could react
to Trump’s Paris move with defiance. He believes they may
reason: “I’m not in agreement with what Trump’s doing with
the Paris accord, so I’m going to put a solar system on my
house.” Only time will tell.
Gill Watson – Features Editor