WCA May 2009

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.

Elsewhere in telecom . . .

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

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

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Wire & Cable ASIA – May/June 2009