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To: Cooters who wrote (5029)	1/11/2000 9:32:00 AM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

Some of this contradicts other information that I have read (Samsung is supposedly already selling handsets in India)..... koreaherald.co.kr [Business forum] LGIC makes inroads into Indian mobile phone services market LG Information and Communication (LGIC) said yesterday it has agreed with the Indian government to provide systems and handsets for the nation's CDMA-based (code division multiple access) cellular phone service. The telecom arm of the LG Group is the first Korean firm to make inroads into the lucrative Indian wireless market, which is expected to become the world's largest with China in 10 years. LGIC said the company beat out 11 major telecommunications firms including Motorola, Ericsson, and Qualcomm to be chosen as the provider of mobile phone equipment. A final agreement with India's Department of Telecommunications will be signed in February. The company will supply CDMA-WLL (wireless local loop) systems and handsets, worth $35 million, to be deployed in India's 16 major cities including Madras, Ahmedabad, and Hyderabad. The company will set up a local venture to manufacture and market mobile telecom equipment near Delhi within the first quarter of this year. The first batch of shipments will consist of 56,000 subscription lines but the company expects the volume to expand soon. "India's telecom market offers the highest growth potential in the world. The market will rise to the level of 1 million subscription lines in the near future," says an LGIC spokesman Hwang Hong-sok. He estimates that only two in every 100 Indian people own a telephone, while phone service is available in only 230,000 villages, one-third of a total of 600,000 villages across the nation. "That leaves much room for spectacular growth in the future for the nation with a population topping 1 billion," the LGIC official said. Recently, the Indian government is pushing hard to establish its communications infrastructure with a massive investment plan. "India will expand the CDMA-WLL system because its infrastructure would involve less investment and time to build than a fixed-line system," he said. WLL is a technology that allows operators to build phone networks without laying landlines on users' premises. Mountains and jungles cover much of India's territory, rendering the wireless local loop system an ideal communication system. With India's huge potential, the world's leading telecom players have continued their neck-and-neck battle for supremacy in the nation. But LGIC said its technical superiority has been recognized in many emerging markets. The company continued expanding its presence in the overseas CDMA market including Russia, Rumania, and China. Most recently, the company formed a joint-venture in Guangdong Province, China, in December 1999 to manufacture and market CDMA-WLL equipment. LGIC's new operation in India will serve the firm as a strategic base to further expand its reach to neighboring countries, said the LGIC official.