France's Alcatel and USA-based Lucent Technologies have lots of reasons to stick with their old names after they complete their $13.5 billion merger. Several hundred million reasons, perhaps. When Alcatel unveiled its acquisition of Lucent earlier this month, Alcatel Chief Executive Serge Tchuruk said that the two telecom-equipment giants would "choose a name later on." Yet rebranding a large corporation costs a lot of money. For example, some analysts estimate that the former SBC Communications is spending as much as $1 billion to rename itself AT&T; Inc. after acquiring the old Ma Bell brand in November. "Branding is not cheap" Jay Pultz, senior communications analyst, Gartner. Lucent and Alcatel also have other priorities: They need to integrate two large ...

Posted by Budi Putra on April 18th, 2006 No Comments »

The number of GSM mobile users in Latin America and the Caribbean is expected to grow 50% this year to 180 million compared to 2005, Erasmo Rojas, Latin America and Caribbean director for GSM industry association 3G Americas, told BNamericas. At the end of the first quarter, Latin America recorded nearly 260 million mobile users up from 188 million in 1Q05. Comparing last quarter with the same period a year ago, GSM was the fastest growing technology, increasing its client base by 93%, while CDMA technology grew 37% and TDMA continues to lose subscribers. According to 3G Americas, GSM accounts for 52% of users in Brazil, 59% in Mexico, 74% in Colombia, 56% in Argentina and 53% in Chile. On the other ...

Posted by Budi Putra on April 18th, 2006 No Comments »

Digi International Monday unveiled the telecom industry's first upgradeable commercial-grade 3G wireless area network (WAN) router. The Minnesota company said in a news release that the ConnectPort WAN will appeal to companies that require high-speed connections for 3G (third-generation) wireless services. ConnectPort performs a variety of functions, including cellular routing, firewall and switching and can remotely monitor devices including security cameras and utilities. It also provides broadband downlink speeds of up to 700 kilobits per second. [3G!] Read more: UPI

Posted by Budi Putra on April 18th, 2006 No Comments »

China's government will release 3G telecom licenses in September 2006, according to a China Mobile insider quoted by eNet. The report said that China Mobile plans to increase the pace of construction of its WCDMA network and has set up 3G trial networks in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Huizhou of Guangdong province. [3G!] Read more: Pacific Epoch (subscription)

Posted by Budi Putra on April 17th, 2006 No Comments »

Malaysia's Celcom and Maxis have launched 3G interconnection, enabling interconnect video telephony. By opening access between the two major 3G networks, the 3G user community in Malaysia immediately increased twofold, allowing Celcom's and Maxis' users to make and receive video calls, and send and retrieve video messages among themselves. Both service providers are confident that interconnection will boost take-up and usage of 3G video telephony and video messaging services, as how interconnection did to SMS and to an extent MMS. After interconnection for SMS was established in 2001, usage of text messages almost doubled from 3.6 billion SMS sent in the following year to 6.2 billion SMS sent in 2003. The Celcom-Maxis 3G interconnection was launched after a series of ...

Posted by Budi Putra on April 17th, 2006 No Comments »

The number of new mobile phone subscribers of Indonesia's second largest telecoms firm, PT Indosat Tbk, may fall by 8-12 percent in the first quarter of this year from the same period in 2005, its chief said on Monday. However, Hasnul Suhaimi, Indosat's president director, told reporters the company still retained its target of between 3-4 million new users this year. "Subscribers in Q1 2006 were down by 8-12 percent compared with the previous year period," Suhaimi said, refering to the company's new mobile phone users. He did not elaborate further. By the end of 2005, Indosat , 42 percent owned by Singapore's ST Telemedia, had 14.4 million mobile phone customers out of a total of 45 million mobile phone users in ...

Posted by Budi Putra on April 17th, 2006 No Comments »

The number of 3G (third-generation) mobile subscribers is expected to grow quickly in China, despite getting off to a relatively slow start, according to a telecommunications research firm in Beijing. China will have 5.5 million 3G subscribers within the first 12 months that these services are available, according to Norson (Hong Kong) Information Technology, in Beijing. That number will grow quickly, rising to 21.9 million by the end of the second year and hitting 84.2 million by the end of the third year, Norson said. China is the world's largest market for mobile services, with more than 404 million subscribers at the end of February, according to China's Ministry of Information Industry. For now, these subscribers must be content with 2G (second-generation) mobile ...

Posted by Budi Putra on April 15th, 2006 No Comments »

Analysys International, a leading Internet based provider of business information about technology, media and telecom (TMT) industries in China, says 440,000 users will be using 3G mobile terminals by the end of 2006 and by the year 2008, 78.08 million users will be using 3G mobile terminals in China. According to the report 'China Mobile Terminal and Channel Research Report 2005-2006,' recently released by Analysys International, 3G mobile telecommunication licenses will be issued in China in the second half of this year, when operators will begin 3G networks construction and purchase of 3G terminals. 3G mobile communication services will be provided in China in the first half of 2007. Mature 3G commercial applications will occur in the second half of ...

Posted by Budi Putra on April 15th, 2006 No Comments »

The 2006 China 3G Summit ran from April 12-14 and was held at the Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition Center. The 3G Summit runs concurrently with the 20th Tele-Expo China and the 67th China Electronics Fair, one of the largest annual telecom exhibitions in China. The 3G Summit was organized by China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII) and sponsored by Frost & Sullivan, China-CBN, and Hunan Satellite TV. This year’s discussions revolved around the long anticipated issuance of 3G licenses in China. The 3G Summit draws great attention from industry leaders, telecom experts and scholars, and government officials involved with 3G services, including China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII), the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, China Mobile, ...

Posted by Budi Putra on April 15th, 2006 No Comments »

India is expected to have 21.3 million 3G users (11 per cent of the mobile lines) by 2010. Within two years, India is expected to take over Japan to become the third largest mobile market in the world after China and the US. This was the finding of The Confederation of Indian Industry's (CII) report titled, "Enabling India's Broadband Economy - The 3G Way", a market study conducted by CII in partnership with the research firm The Yankee Group. According to report, keeping in view that as on date we have managed only one million broadband users against a target of three million to have been achieved by December 2005, there is a need to exploit the 3G technologies to enhance ...

Posted by Budi Putra on April 14th, 2006 No Comments »