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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Biddle who wrote (30542)	12/31/2002 11:30:57 AM
From: John Biddle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 196668

Indian telecom sector sees $1.05 bn foreign funds Reuters New Delhi, December 31 hindustantimes.com India's telecom sector, billed as one of the fastest growing markets globally this decade, has attracted foreign direct investment worth $1.05 billion in the past two years, the government said in a statement on Monday. India opened up its nascent telecom market to global companies in the early nineties to boost competition and boost phone usage – currently around 4.5 per cent of the population have a phone compared with a global average of 15 per cent. "The total FDI inflow till date in the sector has been to the tune of Rs 95.58 billion ($1.99 billion)," the statement said. "The sectors where maximum FDI has come through includes cellular services... (and) basic telephone services." The booming sector has cornered a large chunk of India's annual FDI inflows of between $3.0-$4.0 billion, and the industry is expected to pull in investments in excess of $20 billion over the next five years. India has more than 10 million mobile phone users surging by over 80 per cent each year. The eight-year-old cellular industry has the lowest call charges in the world and has attracted a clutch of global players such as Singapore Telecommunications and AT&T Wireless Services Inc. The number of mobile users is expected to jump to 120 million by 2008, making the sector one of the hottest markets in the world for foreign firms battling low telecom demand in most western countries. An even cheaper limited radius service, based on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) wireless technology developed by US-based Qualcomm Inc is also fast gaining acceptance amongst customers. Earlier this week Reliance Infocomm Ltd, a unit of the Reliance group, launched a range of telecom services based on the CDMA platform in 673 towns and cities in the initial phase. The company is executing a $5.0 billion, 116,000-km terabit fibre-optic network which will link 640,000 villages and 2,500 towns across India in about two years.