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Technology Stocks : The New Qualcomm - a S&P500 company -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gdichaz who wrote (7838)	3/22/2000 3:58:00 PM
From: LBstocks	Respond to of 13582

Korean companies anticipate entry into China's mobile phone market Despite some delays in the process, China will ultimately deploy a mobile communications network using code division multiple access (CDMA) technology. The assurance was given to the Korean delegation headed by former Information and Communication Minister Namgoong Suek, who visited China on March 16-18 to discuss with high-ranking Chinese officials the participation of Korean companies in the Chinese CDMA market. "Vice Premier Wu Bangguo said that the CDMA project was postponed due to internal problems and gave assurance that it will eventually be resumed," said Yoo Young-hwan, director-general of Information Cooperation Office at the Ministry of Information and Communication, who was part of the delegation. The Chinese mobile phone market has tremendous potential for growth. Its 43 million subscribers, including 600,000 users of CDMA trial service, are widely projected to reach over 120 million by 2003. China, which has deployed a GSM (global service for mobile communication) network, will soon run out of available frequencies with nearly 200,000 new users signing up each week. At that rate, GSM will not be able to meet the demand and the country will have to turn to CDMA, which makes more efficient use of the available frequency. "Over 40 million wireless phone users will be on the CDMA network in the next three years," Yoo estimated. "Overall, we had a positive response from the Chinese who bought highly our experience as the first country to deploy commercial CDMA service and the fact that we have over 25 million subscribers," said Yoo. Although the Chinese consider Korea as an important partner for CDMA roll-out, the Chinese are demanding technology transfer as part of any foreign company's entry into the Chinese telecom market, according to Yoo. "They are obviously interested in localization of technology and want to see foreign companies working with local partners," he explained. Given those conditions, Korean firms are at an advantage if they can guarantee technology transfer. Korean companies have a wealth of technologies to offer their Chinese counterparts. While the developer of CDMA technology, Qualcomm holds intellectual property rights to six core technologies, Korean companies hold about 220-230 technologies related to commercial deployment and operation. "It appears that the Ministry of Information Industry and China Unicom are at odds over a localization policy," observed Yoo. China Unicom, China's number two carrier that plans to have an 11 million subscriber-capacity CDMA system by the end of the year, was criticized last week by Premier Zhu Rongji for failing to coordinate with governmental agencies before issuing CDMA tenders. Another important factor in the minds of Chinese officials is the evolution to the third-generation (3G) telecommunications system. At the juncture when 3G was just being introduced, it has emerged as an important factor that will play a considerable role in deciding how much of the current 2G system they should adopt, according to Yoo. On concerns that Zhu left unclear the fate of the military-backed telecoms already providing CDMA services, Yoo said there is no doubt that China Unicom will be the CDMA service provider. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) holds a stake in China Great Wall Communications, which has been operating trial commercial networks since the mid-1990s despite a 1998 ban on military participation in business. The networks have been expanded in the past few months. A new PLA-backed company, Century Mobile Communications Corp., has begun operating systems elsewhere, including a large network in Hebei Province. Korean companies view the Chinese telecom market as a goldmine waiting to be exploited. Thirteen Korean equipment suppliers participated in the first round of bids to supply CDMA network equipment last month. Samsung Electronics was the only Korean supplier to qualify in the first round along with other major equipment makers including Motorola, Nortel and Lucent, according to Samsung Electronics. The company has teamed up with Shanghai Panda as a local partner, although the next round of bidding to supply equipment for the 3.4 million circuit-capacity network has been postponed indefinitely, for now, the company said. If chosen, it would not be the first time that Samsung Electronics is supplying equipment to a Chinese mobile telecom company. The company last December supplied CDMA equipment for a 200,000 subscriber-capacity network operated by Century Mobile Communications Corp. in Hebei. "The contract involves supplying further equipment totaling about $200 million," said a Samsung spokesperson. Despite its failure to qualify in the first round, LG Information and Communication (LGIC) said it has not given up on the possibility of participating in the second round. "In China, virtually anything goes and we have not yet given up," said a company official. The company has also been looking for a local partner since December, and one could be announced soon. "All the major Korean handset manufacturers are looking for Chinese partners. The high-tariffs will make it impossible to import handsets into China," he added. Updated: 03/23/2000 by Kim Hoo-ran Staff reporter

To: gdichaz who wrote (7838)	3/22/2000 9:07:00 PM
From: cfoe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

I have been catching up on this thread for the past three days (and am getting near the end <g>). This whole HDR debate is very interesting and my thanks to all for the various posts. In my opinion, the greater the noise from Q's competitors the more I believe Q has got a tiger by its tail. One observation about the HDR/data question. I find it difficult to believe service providers can have any doubts about the impact of data on their business. Most of the major wireless service providers (NXTL and VOD excepted) only have to look at what is happening on the wire side of things, where data is overtaking and promises to swamp voice, very soon. How can they believe it will be any different with wireless? And it is not just data capability itself, but the demand for speed. If it is showing up in their wired business, how can it not show up in wireless? It may be that the speed of change in the industry is so fast, they are trying to (literally) hold back progress so that they can get their arms around things better - get the their businesses under more control. Sorry, but the innovators (like Q) are not, can not afford to, slow down.