As for the top carriers in Asia/Pacific, I'm sure I should have added BT.
Interesting article in FT regarding China and the first crack in its telecom monopoly:
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MONDAY JULY 20 1998ÿÿAsia-Pacificÿ
CHINA TELECOMS: Company suffers monopoly breach
By James Kynge in Beijing
China's dominant state telecommunications company, China Telecom, suffered the first breach of its nationwide fixed line monopoly at the weekend after a state-run competitor was allowed to start business in the coastal city of Tianjin.
The decision to grant Unicom, the second state operator, interconnection to China Telecom's network in Tianjin brought to an end more than a year of official resistance and delay.
The interconnection means that customers of Unicom's relatively meagre 50,000-line network may call within the city or beyond it using lines belonging to China Telecom.
Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, hailed the move as the "beginning of the end of the monopolistic situation" in fixed line telecoms. But it was unlikely that foreign companies would be granted permission to operate networks for several years yet, analysts said.
In spite of a ban on foreign companies operating any form of telecoms service in China, two foreign companies were set to derive revenue indirectly from Unicom's new business.
Sprint, the US telecoms operator, and Sumitomo Corp of Japan put up capital to roll out Unicom's network in Tianjin through a local subsidiary. They were expected to be allocated a share of the network's operating revenue, company executives said.
Signs of competition are already evident. Unicom was offering installation from RMB805 ($97) compared to China Telecom's RMB3,700 standard fee. But, according to local television reports, China Telecom countered by offering clients a discount on installation as long as they undertook not to use "other operators".
The partial breach of China Telecom's fixed line monopoly was one of the first tangible fruits of the reorganisation of China's ministries announced in March.
The new telecoms ministry, the ministry of information industry (MII), is an amalgamation of the formerly rival ministries of posts and telecommunications (MPT), electronic industry (MEI), and parts of the ministry of radio, film and television.
The merger reduced competition between the MPT, which was China Telecom's parent organisation, and the MEI, one of Unicom's main shareholders, analysts said. The MII controls both companies.>>>> |
