Huawei to acquire Symantec’s 49 percent stake in Huawei Symantec (China, USA)
Huawei Technologies Co.Ltd. has announced that it will acquire Symantec Corp.’s 49 percent stake in Huawei Symantec Technologies Co. Ltd for US$ 530 million, thereby giving Huawei full ownership of Huawei Symantec.
According to reports, Guo Ping, Deputy Chairman, Huawei has said that the integration of Huawei Symantec’s innovative security and storage technology with Huawei’s enterprise products will reinforce Huawei’s leading position in cloud computing. He added that Huawei Symantec has achieved tremendous success in the past four years, having built a portfolio of products and solutions that are widely recognized by their customers and business partners. Looking ahead, Huawei will continue to increase investment in Huawei Symantec, reaffirming its commitment to customers.
As per sources, the acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed by early next year, until which time both companies will continue to comply with the current joint venture agreements.
Vodafone plans to invest multi-million Euros for network expansion (Hungary)
Vodafone Hungary is reportedly planning to invest a ‘nine-digit euro’ sum in its networks. The capital expenditure programme would involve the build out of a 4G mobile network, using elements of the existing 2G/3G infrastructure, as well as the deployment of 400 new base transceiver stations (BTS).
Once completed, the company’s mobile broadband capabilities will be available to 99% of the population and speeds will double.
The cellco’s UK parent Vodafone Group is bankrolling the investment, with equipment set to be supplied by China’s Huawei Technologies.
Huawei to offer free mobile network to London underground system
Huawei Technologies is bidding to provide a mobile network for the London underground system in time for the 2012 Olympics.
According to sources, this offer, worth around US$80 million is being made from the former Olympic nation to the new one. There have been attempts to deploy a network for mobile phones in the Underground for almost a decade but no one has apparently been able to come up with a commercially viable model.
There have been heightened reports recently that Transport for London was close to signing a contract with the UK’s mobile networks with the intention to deploy the network in places for the London Olympics.
A spokesperson confirmed that transport for London and the Mayor are currently in discussion with mobile phone operators and other suppliers about the potential provision of mobile phone services on the deep Tube network. Given the financial pressures on TfL’s budgets, any solution would need to be funded through mobile operators with no cost to the fare or taxpayers.
Huawei, China Telecom plans to provide unified transport solution
Huawei Technologies will provide operators with a unified transport solution worldwide featuring ultra-high speed without congestion, high reliability, and full intelligence.
This unified transport offering is a 1588v2-capable solution that integrates WDM/OTN, MSTP/Hybrid MSTP, and microwave systems, and achieves instant service provisioning over massive bandwidth.
In order to provide this facility Huawei and China Telecom on a joint venture have completed lab testing of its end-to-end (E2E) 1588v2 clock solution, using Huawei’s OTN (Optical Transport Network) and MSTP (Multi-service Transmission Platform) transport products.
Being organized by China Telecom Beijing Research Institute, the test demonstrated the high performance and reliability of Huawei’s 1588v2 clock solution, which exceeds the current performance standard required for commercial use.
It also provides an important reference for China Telecom to deploy 1588v2 over the live network. The 1588v2 clock solution provides accurate clock signals of the same frequency and phase for base stations and it meets the strict clock requirements of 3G and LTE, while keeping mobile phone signals unaffected during switching between base stations.
In this joint test between Huawei and China Telecom, the synchronization accuracy was less than 300 ns, far better than 1, which is the benchmark for commercial use. The number of nodes that the clock signals traverse reached more than 30, but no compensation is needed throughout the entire network during the test. At the same time, the test showed that the 1588v2 performance was highly reliable and unaffected even in the case of a fiber break or power outage, ensuring smooth operation of wireless services.
Bharti Airtel to launch 3G services (India)
India’s largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel has announced that it will commercially launch 3G mobile services within a week.
According to Bharti Airtel CEO Sanjay Kapoor, they will make the announcement for the commercial launch of our 3G service in next six to seven days.
Bharti had won spectrum (radio waves) for 3G services in 13 of the country’s 22 telecom service areas in the auction held by the Government last year.
Recently, the government permitted carriage of video calls on mobile networks subject to an undertaking by operators that they would provide interception capability by July 31.
Bharti Airtel has given contracts to leading global vendors — Ericsson India, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) and Huawei Technologies to set up infrastructure for providing 3G services in the country.
Two groups qualify for TOT’s 3G expansion (Thailand)
Two groups have qualified to participate in an auction for the contract to supply and install US$570 million worth of 3G equipment for Thai state-owned TOT’s national mobile network expansion.
The two qualifiers are: a consortium comprising Samart Corp, Loxley, Huawei Technologies and Nokia Siemens Networks; and the grouping of United Communication Industry, Advanced Information Technology and Alcatel-Lucent.
According to reports, two other consortia which submitted applications failed to meet TOT’s technical specifications for the online auction scheduled for 28 January. The telco hopes to sign a contract for the W-CDMA/HSPA expansion around 15-18 February.
Reliance Comm increases $255 mln via ECB for 3G (India)
Reliance Communications has raised $255 million of external commercial borrowing (ECB) to partly refinance payments made for acquiring 3G, air waves.
According to the company, this loan is funded by a consortium of banks led by Australian and New Zealand Banking Group, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, DBS Bank Ltd and Intesa Sanpaolo. Reliance Communications won bandwidth for 13 service areas in a government-led auction in May last year for US$1.88 billion.The refinancing extends the tenure of the borrowing as well as lowering the interest costs for the company.
Last month, Reliance Communications signed a memorandum of understanding with China Development Bank to refinance the $1.33 billion paid for 3G spectrum to the Department of Telecommunications. The MoU also covers financing of up to $600 million towards equipment and services to be procured from Chinese vendors such as ZTE Corporation and Huawei Technologies.
Huawei wins Bravo infrastructure efficiency deal (Saudi Arabia)
Saudi Arabia’s Bravo has selected Huawei Technologies to deploy its Business Support System (BSS) solutions, with a view to increasing Bravo’s overall operational efficiency. The BSS solution will primarily aim to eliminate the limitations of Bravo’s legacy billing system.
According to Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al-Ageel, CEO of Bravo, they have signed this agreement with Huawei because of the commitments to their customers in terms of increasing the efficiency of Bravo’s operational infrastructure. Their commitment to customers, in private and public sectors, drives them to constantly revolutionize – to reach the best level of efficiency in all of Bravo’s departments’.
The project is scheduled for completion before the end of 2011, but it will be an additional year before Bravo can expect to see the benefits of its implementation.
Common mobile phones charger expected to hit in early 2011
A new standard for a universal phone charger has been approved by two of Europe’s standardization bodies – CEN-CENELEC and ETSI – which follows an agreement by the main handset manufacturers in June 2009 to work towards a single charger that will work on all future mobile phones.
According to European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani, Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship, he is very happy that the European Standardization Bodies have met their request to develop within a short space of time – the technical standards necessary for a common mobile phone charger based on the work done by industry. Now it is time for industry to show its commitment to sell mobile phones for the new charger. The common charger will make life easier for consumers, reduce waste and benefit businesses. It is a true win-win situation.
Incompatibility of chargers for mobile phones is not only a major inconvenience for users, but also a considerable environmental problem. Users who want to change their mobile phones must usually buy a new charger and dispose of the old one, even if it is in good condition. In response to citizens’ demand for a common charger, the European Commission invited manufacturers to agree on a technical solution making compatible the chargers of different brands.
As a result, mobile phone producers committed themselves to ensure compatibility of data-enabled mobile phones, expected to be predominant in the market within two years, on the basis of the Micro-USB connector. The agreement was established in June 2009 and signed by Apple, Emblaze Mobile, Huawei Technologies, LG, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Qualcomm, Research In Motion (RIM), Samsung, Sony Ericsson, TCT Mobile (Alcatel), Texas Instruments and Atmel.
The Commission then issued a mandate to the European Standardization Organizations CEN-CENELEC and ETSI in December 2009, requesting the development of European standards for the common charger. The two organizations have now delivered. The standards allow for interoperability, i.e. the common charger is compatible with data-enabled mobile telephones of different brands. They also take account of safety risks and electro-magnetic emissions and ensure that common chargers have sufficient immunity to external interference.
The European Commission expects the first common chargers and mobile phones compatible with the new standards to reach the European market in the first months of 2011.
China positive on EU wireless modem decision
Commerce Minister Chen Deming has stated that the Chinese government is hopeful that the European Commission (EC) will stop an investigation into Chinese wireless wide area networking (WWAN) modems.
According to Chen, they hope the EC will support the China-EU business cooperation and make a prompt decision to stop the three types of trade investigation. The Chinese government will continue to keep an eye on the issue.
The EU opened an anti-subsidy probe into WWAN modems imported from China in September after it initiated an anti-dumping investigation and a safeguard measure probe into the modems in June.
The complaint behind the three probes was laid by Belgium’s modem-maker Option, the sole producer of WWAN modems in the EU. It had been alleged that China unfairly subsidies wireless modem makers such as Huawei Technologies and ZTE. However, Option later dropped its anti-dumping and anti-subsidy complaints after securing a commercial agreement with Huawei.
Chen added that China is very concerned with the issue because it involves a great amount of money and comes under three types of investigations. It is the first time that a single Chinese product has simultaneously come under three types of trade investigations by the EU. The commodity in question involves over US$4 billion in exports.
