2degree inks network expansion contract with Huawei (New Zealand)
2degrees is set to invest more than US$77 million in its network over the next two years, following an agreement with China’s Huawei.
2degrees already provides its customers with nationwide 2G and 3G mobile services via its own network and through commercial roaming. Today’s announcement will see a significant increase in the size, capacity and capability of the 2degrees network.
According to 2degrees Chief Executive Eric Hertz, the investment will see the company extend its 4G ready network beyond the main cities. The company is very conscious that they need to build networks that deliver on tomorrow’s speed and capacity demands, so being able to upgrade to 4G via software activation rather than a network rebuild is especially important as new spectrum becomes available and consumer demands for data continue to grow.
Mr Hertz states that network investment will bring total investment in 2degrees to more than $400 million. 2degrees will also open another 30 retail stores open in 2011 and create 80 new jobs in a new Christchurch-based contact centre. The company has experienced rapid growth in the last 18 months since its launch. Company’s shareholders are eager to see the network develop, the stores and innovative services that make 2degrees even more appealing to New Zealanders.
EU to end Chinese telecom probe despite subsidies
The European Union will drop its inquiry into whether China is giving illegal aid to two of its leading telecom firms, even as the EU’s executive cites evidence of massive subsidies, according to EU Commission documents.
The Commission will propose ending two investigations into illegal export pricing by and state aid to Chinese wireless modem producers after the withdrawal of the complaint by Europe’s main producer, Belgium’s Option, late last year, according to a confidential document seen by Reuters.
The proposal is expected to be approved by European Union governments later this month, ending a case industry players had expected to be a litmus test of the EU’s willingness to challenge Chinese state subsidies. “It would be disproportionate to continue with the investigation and impose measures following the withdrawal of the complaint,” the Commission said in its document, which was distributed on Tuesday to interested parties in the case.
But in a separate document also dated Tuesday and distributed to EU governments, the commission cites evidence – gathered since last summer – that China’s main telecom producers Huawei and ZTE are state-controlled and receive cheap state loans that give them an unfair advantage over their European rivals.
“We would welcome the termination of the investigations as we reject any accusations of injurious dumping and subsidisation,” Huawei said in a statement. ZTE has also denied receiving state aid, but could not be reached for comment.
There was no comment from the EU Commission. Huawei and ZTE have denied receiving state aid, and neither company could immediately be reached for a response. Option dropped its complaints of Chinese subsidies and export dumping after it reached a co-operation agreement with Huawei in October.
According to the Commission, ZTE received credit lines of $15 billion from the China Development Bank and $10 billion from the China Export-Import Bank in 2009. The Commission’s findings also include allegations that ZTE and Huawei are still influenced by the state.
Beyond wireless modem manufacturing, the growth of Huawei and ZTE in other sectors has worried European telecoms hardware and network infrastructure producers such as Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent.
EU expects major Chinese govt support for Huawei, ZTE
If reports are to be believed, the European Commission believes Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp., China’s largest telecommunications equipment makers, benefit from massive credit lines from Chinese state-owned banks and other significant government support.
The findings are likely to fuel further debate regarding the treatment of the large subsidies that–according to western governments and companies–Chinese businesses receive from the Chinese government. Western trade experts state that Huawei, which has rapidly grown to become the world’s No.2 telecommunications equipment maker, is a compelling example of a Chinese company that has been nurtured to global dominance using such subsidies.
The commission document, circulated to European Union national governments this week, explains that the preliminary results of commission investigations into unfair Chinese trade practises alleged by Option NV, a small Belgian maker of wireless modems. The commission in the document proposes to close the investigations without finishing them, because Option withdrew its complaints in October.
The document concludes that nevertheless, several important issues have come to light which remain unanswered by the major exporting producers of this product.
The major European Union producers of telecommunications equipment–Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent–have seen their margins squeezed by stiff competition from Huawei and ZTE. Their rapid growth has prompted discussion among western firms that they are probably benefiting from extensive Chinese government support.
Over the last five years Option saw its share of the EU wireless modem market nearly disappear due to competition from Huawei and ZTE, which now control almost the entire European market.
Wireless modems, which connect computers to wireless Internet networks, are a relatively small business for Huawei and ZTE. The more important market is large network equipment such as Internet base stations for mobile networks–where the two Chinese firms compete with Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel Lucent.
The subsidies in question appear to be helping all parts of the Chinese firms’ business.
As per the document, the commission had the opportunity to investigate ZTE more thoroughly than Huawei before stopping the investigations. ZTE states it has access to credit lines of an enormous magnitude relative to its annual sales.
Optimus, Huawei achieve 150 Mbps speeds over 2.6 GHz LTE (Portugal)
Huawei and Optimus have demonstrated an LTE trial that achieved downlink speeds of 150 Mbps per user, and uplink speed of 60 Mbps.
In early 2010, Optimus selected Huawei to modernize its GSM network in Portugal, enabling a fast LTE launch in the future. As per the cintract, Huawei’s mobile base stations will be installed in 33 regions. To date, Huawei has deployed more than 1,000 SingleRAN sites to Optimus.
According to Jos© Pinto Correia, Executive Board member and Chief Technology Officer of Optimus, Huawei’s SingleRAN platform enabled Optimus to achieve a step beyond in terms of network performance, while reducing the total cost of ownership. Huawei team’s commitment and competence were crucial for the success of the project, reinforcing the long term partnership between the two companies. LTE first results are very promising and confirm the stability and high performance of Huawei’s solution, guaranteeing readiness for LTE deployment.
Apple, RIM and HTC win big in 2010 mobile handset race
In nearly all parts of the world, consumers’ appetite for purchasing the very latest handsets has not abated. Quite the reverse: research estimates 390 million handsets and smartphones were shipped in 4Q-2010, up 15.6% year-on-year. Overall, that takes the 2010 total of handsets shipped to 1.36 billion. This is a remarkable turnaround given that just one year ago, 2009 shipments had contracted 4.4% YoY.
Nokia’s market share slid marginally to 31.7%, because its revamped smartphone portfolio has yet to gain traction. Samsung made marginal gains in market share to 20.7%. Samsung’s smartphones, including the Galaxy-S, have helped to strengthen its competitiveness in the smartphone sector, but in the overall handset market, this vendor is treading water. Apple’s iPhone 4 continues to capture a growing chunk of the smartphone market (4.2%). RIM also showed respectable gains (3.6%) due to a refreshed lineup of keyboard smartphones as well as a hybrid touch-screen/keyboard smartphone, the Torch. Other overall handset market share winners include HTC, Huawei, ZTE and TCL.
LG (7.8%), Sony-Ericsson (2.9%) and Motorola (2.9%) contracted in global handset market share. However, Motorola has continued to show quarter-on-quarter growth.
A number of vendors have jettisoned their global handset market-share aspirations and are instead focusing their resources and expertise on growing their high-end smartphone market share. Over time, a number of Chinese and Indian handset vendors will corner an increasing slice of the global handset market. They are introducing aggressively priced handsets and smartphones that cater to the needs of emerging market consumers as well as mobile operators looking for operator-branded handsets.
According to sources, Huawei, ZTE and TCL/Alcatel Mobile are being joined by Indian vendors Micromax and Spice Mobile as regional and global handset movers and shakers.
Handset vendors are not the only beneficiaries: chipset companies ARM and Qualcomm have had one of their best financial performances due to the smartphone boom, while MediaTek is angling to capture the low-end smartphone segment.
TOT awards 3G contract to Samart (Thailand)
Thailand’s Samart Corp. has won the bidding to build TOT’s forthcoming 3G network following a public auction.
The action was nearly delayed after protests from Ericsson who claimed they had been unfairly dismissed from bidding, but a court order last night permitted it to go ahead.
The reserve bid for the network tender was set at US$561.30 million, and there were 17 bids during the auction.
The Samart consortium – which is made up of Samart, Loxley, Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei – won with a minimum bid of US$527 million, which was 6.59% below the reserve price. The formal contract is expected to be signed next month with a limited service launch from April.
The state-owned TOT will then expand its 3G coverage of over 5,000 base stations nationwide within this year.
Du to select LTE providers for network launch (UAE)
Du is reportedly in the process of choosing the provider of its Long Term Evolution (LTE) network.
According to Hatem Bamatraf, the Dubai-based firm’s Senior Vice President for network development, they have agreed with a number of suppliers to do testing and… test under a number of scenarios.
Finnish vendor Nokia Siemens Networks, Sweden’s Ericsson and Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE have reportedly been shortlisted to supply the equipment for Du’s 4G rollout.
Bamatraf added that he expects the technology to be commercially available sometime this year, but could not specify a particular date. He did reveal that it would be mainly available in certain ‘hotspots’ throughout the UAE: they don’t expect to go 100% across the country, like the 3G [network]… There will be areas such as the TECOM areas or Jumeirah or the shopping malls that will have it. You won’t need it along the roads because you won’t need to use such fast data while you’re driving.
Unicom to target 50m new 3G subscribers (China)
China Unicom is planning to attract 50 million new 3G subscribers this year, and has started a marketing push to reach its goal.
According to sources, the company has started localized 3G marketing at two of its branches and is preparing new 3G services to help it meet its ambitious targets.
But Unicom, which signed up a consistent 1 million subscribers per month from May to November 2010, would need to more than quadruple this rate of additions to do so.
According to reports, Unicom had 11.6 million 3G subscribers as of the end of October. This places it second among the three main operators, behind China Mobile (16.9 million) but ahead of China Telecom (10 million).
Sources added that as part of its drive, China Unicom has started selling the 5 million low-cost 3G handsets it acquired through a central procurement process.
The phones include models from Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, ZTE and Huawei.
Huawei sets up Canadian research centers
Huawei has announced that it is signing two agreements with the Canadian mobile network operators, Telus and Bell Canada to set up Joint Innovation Centers in Canada.
In the Joint Innovation Centres, Huawei and the Canadian networks will work together on developing and enhancing broadband wireless solutions, core network products and value-added service offerings.
Further information was not revealed.
