Asia Pacific Market
Asia Pacific Market

Asia Pacific Market

NEC Scales for New Heights in China's Mobile Telecoms

NEC Corporation today announced the establishment of new business structure “NEC Telecommunications (China)” and the appointment of business veteran Brian (Lei) Lu as head of the new structure to pursue mobile communications business in China. The new business structure is the results of reorganization among NEC’s telecom manufacturing, marketing, service and maintenance operations in China to fully adapt to mobile internet and 3G mobile business.

W-CDMA's Future in China Questionable

UTStarcom, Inc, a leading US-based telecom equipment manufacturer, has grown rapidly with a strategy of focusing on China’s market. In the following interview, the Nikkei Weekly interviews Masahiko Yabuki, a board member and general manager of UTStarcom Japan KK, who tells the magazine that he believes W-CDMA has a ropey future in China.

Mobile Contents for China

UNISK, formed by SK Telecom and China Unicom, is China’s first joint venture telecom service provider that operates with both foreign and national companies. Their pilot service launched on March 13th, one month later, it had obtained about 40 thousand subscribers for the monthly flat rate. The UNISK wireless Internet portal service is offering approximately 2,700 types of content, in five categories, in China.

Huawei 3G – Made in China

According to Huawei spokesman Fu Jun, Huawei has already begun producing handsets for use with mobile systems that use the CDMA-1X standard backed by US-based Qualcomm Corp. Fu said Huawei is also developing handsets for W-CDMA, which is the European standard Hong Kong’s Hutchison Whampoa Ltd is using in its 3G service now on offer in Britain and Italy. He added new 3G handsets are being designed in various partnerships with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co’s Panasonic, NEC Corp and Infineon Technologies AG. The company made headlines in December when it signed agreements with Emirates Telecommunications Corp and Hong Kong’s Sunday on the deployment of W-CDMA networks for the two telecom operators.

G-mode goes Java for Games in Indonesia

G-mode has signed a licensing agreement with inTouch Wireless Services of Singapore, and begun providing subscribers of PT Telekomunikasi Selular Indonesia, the leading GSM provider in Indonesia, with Java-enabled cellphone game titles. The GSM provider had 10 million subscribers as of February 2004. The number of mobile phone users in Indonesia is estimated at about 18 million, and is expected to reach 24-27 million by year-end.

iBurst Officially Launches in Sydney

Personal Broadband Australia (PBA) announced that its eagerly anticipated iBurst 1 Megabit per second wireless service has been officially launched. PBA’s iBurst service is Australia’s first mobile broadband network. Invited guests attended the launch and included representatives from shareholding companies ArrayComm Inc, Mitsubishi Corporation Japan, Kyocera Corporation Japan and Mitsubishi Australia. See recent WWJ video interview with Dr. Martin Cooper about this project.