Archive for January, 2010
China – MNOs spent RMB 1.16 trillion constructing 325,000 3G base stations
January 28th, 2010 | 
Author: Excluding revenue from calls, China’s telecom industry took in revenue of RMB 313.55 billion in 2009, up 8.8% year-on-year, while telecom tariffs fell 9.2% year-on-year in the period, 163.com reported January 27 quoting the MIIT data.
In 2009, China produced 182 million computers, up 27.5% year-on-year, 620 million handsets, up 9.8% year-on-year, and 99.66 million color TVs, up 9.3% year-on-year, said Xin Guobin, the director of MIIT’s Operation, Supervision and Co-ordination Bureau, according to information on MIIT’s website.
China had 15 million 3G subscribers by late 2009, including 5.1 million TD-SCDMA users, MIIT Telecom Development Bureau Director Zhang Feng said. MIIT announced earlier this month that China’s 3G users reached 13.07 million by the end of November 2009 and were expected to exceed 15 million by the end of the year.
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China – Ministry says 3G users reached15 million at the end of 2009
China’s three telecom operators — China Mobile(NYSE:CHL, 0941.HK), China Unicom and China Telecom — have together invested a total of RMB 160.9 billion in 3G by the end of November and completed 325,000 3G base stations in 2009, the report said.
China had 9.77 million 3G users by the end of October 2009, MIIT said on December 15.
VoIP – HTML5 Frees Google Voice from Phone App Stores
Google said Tuesday that it’s harnessing HTML5 to deliver Google Voice to Palm webOS and iPhone OS 3.0 and higher smartphones. As the next major revision to the web’s core hypertext markup language, HTML5 introduces a number of new elements and attributes that let developers Relevant Products/Services construct powerful new services with the look and feel of stand-alone mobile apps.
Google, which released an HTML5-based version of its Chrome browser Monday, noted that handset load times and network Relevant Products/Services requests are significantly reduced for web services based on the new hypertext language. “Overall, this results in a much faster and smoother user experience,” a spokesperson said.
USA – CTIA defends early termination fees for mobile
Responding to the Federal Communications Commission’s inquiry into early termination fees, the CTIA said that the fees were an integral part of carriers’ pricing structure that helped them provide several benefits to consumers, including heavily subsidized smartphones.
“We hope that there is a recognition by the FCC that these fees are part of the rate and rate structure that allows wireless carriers to, among other things, subsidize phone purchases,” said the CTIA. “Additionally, consumers of all of the carriers that received letters from the FCC have multiple options when it comes to choosing plans and devices without early termination fees. About 20 percent of Americans have chosen a prepaid plan without a contract.”
The CTIA’s defense of early termination fees came just hours after the FCC said it had sent letters to AT&T, Google, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon “to gather facts and data on the consumer experience with early termination fees.” In particular the FCC cited concerns that early termination fees “have an important impact on consumers’ ability to switch carriers” and said the commission must make sure that “consumers fully understand what they are signing up for… when they accept a service plan with an early termination fee.”
The practice of charging early termination fees has come under fire in recent months after Verizon doubled its standard early termination fee from $175 to $350 last November. The release of the Google Nexus One smartphone has only added to the controversy, as both Google and T-Mobile say they plan to charge users separate early termination fees if they ditch their Nexus One in less than four months. Taken together, the twin fees could add up to $550 for customers who break their contracts early.
The FCC’s inquiry into early termination fees is part of a broader examination of wireless industry practices that the commission announced last summer. Specifically, the FCC is looking for betters ways to “support and encourage further innovation and investment” within the wireless industry, to assess the state of competition within the wireless market and to assess whether carriers can do more to disclose relevant billing information to their customers. The FCC has also previously riled the wireless industry with its stance favoring network neutrality rules stating that ISPs should not be allowed to block or degrade Internet traffic from their competitors in order to speed up their own.
Leased lines – Telecommunications Private Line Services Revenue to Decline through 2012
According to Insight’s report, “Private Line and Wavelength Services, 2009-2014,” the transition from frame relay/ATM networking to IP networks will put a drag on private line revenue growth for several years. Revenue from frame relay/ATM legacy services have been counted as private lines since they provide dedicated transport between locations. Enterprise customers are migrating away from legacy services to IP networks because, bit for bit, IP is priced lower. Private line revenue is thus taking a hit.
“The transition away from frame and ATM will put a break on overall private line industry revenue growth for a couple of years,” says Insight president Robert Rosenberg. “However, private line demand remains strong for wireless backhaul, local bandwidth for caching IPTV video services, and for facilitating VoIP. These are the growth areas for private line, and will be in the years ahead. The transition away from frame and ATM is a temporary blip, and we expect to see overall growth return to the private line sector by 2013,” Rosenberg concluded.
“Private Line and Wavelength Services, 2009-2014″ evaluates the total private line market and segments it by local and long distance private line service revenue, wholesale and retail private line revenue, revenue by type of carrier, revenue by T1, T3 or OC-n circuit class, as well as the number of T1, T3, and OC-n private lines sold. Estimates of wavelength revenues are also provided.
