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Technology Stocks : Lucent Technologies (LU) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bosco who wrote (17658)	2/15/2001 10:02:49 AM
From: Sawtooth	Respond to of 21876

BEIJING, Feb 13 (Reuters) - China Unicom Group, the number two Chinese mobile phone operator, confirmed on Thursday it plans to build a 10 million subscriber network this year that uses Qualcomm Inc's <QCOM.O> CDMA technology. "This year we are going to build a CDMA network with a user capacity of 10 million," Unicom chairman Yang Xianzu told reporters at a business forum in Beijing. "The investment will be around 10 billion yuan ($1.21 billion)," Yang said. The announcement confirmed a state newspaper report on Tuesday about the size of the planned network, although Yang's estimate for the total investment was lower than the 15 billion yuan cited by another Unicom official in that report. The more the network costs, the bigger the potential contracts for equipment vendors such as Lucent Technologies Inc <LU.N> of the United States, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd <05930.KS>, and China's ZTE Corporation <0063.SZ>. As the chief owner of patents in the technology, San Diego-based Qualcomm stands to earn royalties from sales of CDMA (code division multiple access) network equipment and handsets. Yang said the ultimate price of the network, which would span more than 160 Chinese cities, would be determined by auction. "It will all depend on the bidding," he said. "Our target is for the cost should be lower than for GSM." GSM, or global system for mobile communications, is a competing mobile phone standard that dominates the Chinese market. Of Unicom's 20 million subscribers, nearly all are on the GSM standard. The company came under intense lobbying from Qualcomm and domestic equipment manufacturers to build a CDMA network. They argued that the technology is more efficient and allows networks to be upgraded more cheaply to provide high-speed Internet and video services. Yang declined to say when bidding would begin for CDMA contracts. The Hong Kong- and New York-listed wing of Unicom, China Unicom Ltd <0762.HK><CHU.N>, is not involved in the building of the CDMA network, but will have the option to buy it should the network prove profitable, Unicom officials have said. Yang said the China Unicom Group aimed to increase its total GSM subscriber base this year by 50 percent to 30 million. Rival China Mobile Communications Corp claims around 75 percent of the country's 85 million mobile users. Unicom was also seeking foreign strategic partners for its mobile, fixed-line and data businesses, Yang said, without providing details. ($1=8.276 Yuan) 03:36 02-15-01