Jim,
Please read it. It was from Bloomberg. Not from China Telcomm. Not from WSJ. Certainly not from Tero. Certainly not from your critics on Perry and the likes. But I call it a balance report. If ever Tero can produce one.
Tero's view certainly only reflect his own view but no one else. His view only worths so much to present his personal view to this public forums but has nothing to do with Nokia's operations and its price jump. I think we agree on this one. Right?
I own Globalstar. If not for the fall the last summer, Globalstar is supposed to be opeartional by now. Say it is widely successful, I am an early owner of this stock. Does it make me a visionary just because of I make bull comments on Globalstar on a public forum and G* price is skyrocketing?
Vice versa, G* price stays at its current price with the fall of those satellites. Does it make me look like a fool? I did not invest my money in Yahoo and other high flying stock such as Nokia?
I am a shareholder only not a visionary or a fool in either cases I present above. My view on the public forums is just a personal view of a particular stock no matter its price is up or down. So whether Nokia is successful or not, Tero and I do not own or owe any credit or whatsoever.
I debated with Tero not because his personal view about Nokia is anything wrong or right. In fact, more power to him that Noika is flying high. I debate with him because he always present some Nokia's facts (He may be close to the source) at the expense of other companies (MOT, QCOM, ERICY,etc) mixing with facts and non facts.
For example, his view about MOT has changed so many times and so many ways to suit his own needs. When MOT's share price depressed and losing market share to ERICY and Nokia, What did he say about MOT? You can checks his previous comments. (MOT's startac vs Nokia's phones comments!) When he needs MOT to be included in his GSM world, he does not hesitate to embrace it to his GSM circle. (Symbian alliance comments against QCOM). MOT's new CDMA startac against QCOM's CDMA phones comments. Now he represents MOT! The list goes on and on. In summary, any other company is bad except Nokia. Use all he can to promote Nokia at the expense of other companies with mixing facts and non facts.
If Tero can ever write a balanced view articles about telcomm. trend, he should read the report I present you here (c/o Michael in QCOM thread). Otherwise he is still a chemist and a stock tipper. Nothing more and nothing less. By the way, Nokia's phones are popular in China is because China do not have a chance to test the newest thin phones form QCOM. Open up the market both in Europe and in China. Let us compete! As a Finn, will you open up your market for competition? Tero, you never answer my question.
Firms, Governments, Military Fight Over China's Cellular Market
Beijing, Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Governments, foreign and local companies, and even the Chinese armed forces have become embroiled in a battle over which cellular telephone standard China should adopt.
At stake is access to the world's fastest-growing major market for mobile phones. China's cellular subscriber base is expected to grow 80 percent this year to 45 million, surpassing Japan, and making it the world's second-biggest market after the U.S.
China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII), which runs the country's near-monopoly carrier, China Telecom, denies newspaper reports that it already ruled out adopting the U.S. technical standard known as CDMA, or code division multiple access. ''We have not made a decision,'' said Cheng Guanghui, a spokesman for the MII. ''The reports are not true.''
The adoption of CDMA would cut demand for products supplied by European producers of the rival standard known as GSM, or global system for mobile communications. Producers of GSM- compatible equipment include Finland's Nokia AB and Sweden's Ericsson AB. Both companies count China, including Hong Kong, as their biggest market worldwide.
So far, though, the MII has stonewalled, allowing four foreign companies to spend millions of dollars developing pilot CDMA networks in a few cities but refusing to permit them to become fully commercialized and expand into other regions.
That restriction irks Washington, where senior trade officials have lobbied on behalf of U.S. companies supplying CDMA technology. These include San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc., which owns many of the basic CDMA technology patents, and Motorola Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc., which have built trial networks in Beijing and Guangdong province, respectively.
The tiff over standards is likely to be high on the agenda when China's Premier Zhu Rongji travels in April to Washington for a summit with U.S. President Bill Clinton.
The obstacles to CDMA join Washington's lengthening list of complaints against Beijing, including human rights violations, allegations that China stole sensitive U.S. technology, and China's widening trade imbalance with the U.S. China's trade surplus with the U.S. rose 14 percent in 1998 to a record $56.9 billion, according to U.S. Department of Commerce data.
Crossed Wireless
Zhu may argue that the U.S. is partly to blame for the trade gap, pointing to the telecom market as an example.
Earlier this week, the Clinton Administration blocked the export to China of two satellites and other cellular telecommunications equipment by Hughes Electronics, out of concern the advanced system would be operated by military- controlled companies. The shipment would have earned Hughes, a unit of General Motors Corp., as much as $500 million.
China's People's Liberation Army is likely to be the main domestic beneficiary of any success Washington has in promoting CDMA technology to Beijing.
In China, the radio frequencies to be used for CDMA are all controlled by the army. Military-linked companies, along with the MII, own the four companies which operate CDMA networks in four Chinese cities.
Indeed, CDMA equipment suppliers, such as Korea's Samsung Electronics Co., see the military's involvement as the best chance CDMA has to win approval. ''The army organization is very important in CDMA policy in China,'' said Sung Han Bae, the Samsung Group's chief representative in China for telecommunications business.
He said the army ''insists on CDMA'' and is sticking to its plans to develop the network.
For their part, army-linked companies are pushing ahead with trial CDMA networks in Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an and Guangdong province, some of which have been operable for two years.
The head of operations for Beijing Telecom Great Wall Mobile Communications Co. Ltd., the company installing CDMA in the capital, said its pilot network is ''going very well'' and the company is planning to expand the network later this year. She declined to give her name.
Companies expect the northern port city of Tianjin to be named among a second batch of locations where CDMA will be introduced. ''Tianjin is still preparing this technology, although we don't know when it will be approved,'' said Niu Dianchen, a manager of Tianjin Great Wall Mobile Communications Co. Ltd.
Third Generation
If Beijing decides to ditch CDMA and stick with its existing GSM-based technology, Samsung, Lucent, Motorola and Canada's Northern Telecom Inc. would lose their investments. Potential suppliers of equipment such as Korea's LG Electronics Co. and Qualcomm would also lose markets for their products.
The Chinese government would also have to decide how to compensate more than 30,000 people already using CDMA phones in the areas where the networks are operating, Samsung's Bae said.
Some telecommunications analysts, such as Shanghai-based Duncan Clark of BD Associates, say Beijing's decision may hinge on which technology it believes will become the international standard for the next, so-called ''third generation'' of mobile phones.
If China bets the future on the wide-band CDMA mode, known as WCDMA, which is being developed in part by Nokia and Ericsson, the U.S. and Korean suppliers of CDMA will lose out, Clark said.
The Ministry of Information Industry has an incentive of its own to push the WCDMA protocol: if CDMA succeeds instead, it will dilute the MII's dominance of China's telecommunications, which it controls through China Telecom.
WCDMA, on the other hand, uses frequencies not controlled by the Chinese military, allowing the MII to cut the army out of the equation, Clark said.
Brian H. |
