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teledotcom team,
30-Jan-2003
The Asia-Pacific telecoms industry is hoping for a better 2003, having seen tough times in the past year. teledotcom pays tribute to the equipment vendors that are still plugging away to maintain market share, grow revenue, and innovate products.
Qualcomm deployed the first CDMA 1X in South Korea with SK Telecom in October 2000, long before the ITU identified it as 3G technology. CDMA 1X has therefore been enabling 3G services without carriers labelling it as such.
But it makes no matter for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies (QCT), whose goals are to develop solutions that lead to revenue generating services.
The world witnessed an accelerated adoption of CDMA last year, notes Marshall Towe, vice-president and managing director, Southeast Asia, Qualcomm. He says that Asian countries, specifically Korea and Japan, have become compelling showpieces of the revenue-generating capability of CDMA 1X technology. "Over 15 million subscribers enjoyed 3G services in Korea, while Japan's KDDI now serves 3.3 million 1X subscribers. Telecom Mobile in New Zealand and Telstra in Australia have likewise launched 1X services this year," Towe says.
The fast adoption of CDMA 1X technology in Korea helped buoy the performance of another Qualcomm business group, Qualcomm Internet Services (QIS), which is responsible for the development of the content writing platform BREW (Binary Runtine Environment for Wireless) which, according to Towe, has over 2 million users. He added that some 350 applications have been created using the platform by hundreds of active software developer.
Another key achievement for Qualcomm in the region was China Unicom's deployment cdmaOne in more than 300 cities across the country, with subscribers reaching over 4 million by mid-October last year. Towe says the company will continue what it has built upon last year.
"We will continue to work with various operators and vendors throughout the region to facilitate 3G development and promote CDMA as the proven technology for high-speed wireless data services," he adds. Towe observes that there was a marked increased in ARPU by operators which have deployed CDMA technology. This, he thinks, is driven by faster data speeds, colour screens, multimedia capabilities, BREW applications and gspOne capabilities which enable location-specific services.
He adds that Qualcomm will continue to help manufacturers and operators offer feature-rich devices at low prices. "This will lead to a significant diversity and segmentation of devices available to the consumer which has been a key factor in driving the 3G market and wireless data services in many regions, such as Japan and South Korea," he predicts.
Towe thinks that it is important that the chipsets they manufacture support services that are attractive to consumers, and he sees increasing demand for sophisticated multimedia applications, multimode roaming, and location-based applications this year. "The ever increasing worldwide consumer demand for wireless position location has created new revenue opportunities for manufacturers and operators. Operators should look at services like child-safety, personal navigation application, and friend-finder."
Towe says the company's outlook for the region next year is promising. "Qualcom is extremely confident in 3G and CDMA for the coming year. "We expected 3G CDMA launches in Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia this year. China and India are two key growth markets. "China Unicom is proceeding with its CDMA 1X upgrade and rolling out BREW applications this year while operators such as Reliance, BSNL, MTNL and Tata, are all taking progress in CDMA limited mobility in India," Towe concludes.
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