3GNewsroom.com Weekly Round Up and Comments
David Yuen - January 6, 2003
Our round up and comments of the past week's main stories from
our editor.
******** THIS WEEK ********
- Orange exit means Vodafone and Hutchison must pay more
- Spain's new law to help 3G operators
- TD-SCDMA to go commercial in 2004
- All eyes on 3G in 2003 after a dismal 2002
****************************
>>> Orange exit means Vodafone and Hutchison must pay
more
The quest to launch 3G has claimed its latest victim in Europe,
the Swedish operator Orange. The burden of the tough UMTS license
requirements and economic conditions has forced Orange to announce
in December its intention to withdraw its 3G operation from the
Swedish market.
It may not be a straightforward matter of returning the 3G license
and abandoning its 3G operation. The operator may have to pay a
penalty of 100 million euros to the Swedish government for withdrawing.
You would have thought that other 3G license holders would be smiling
at the exit of Orange, but Vodafone and Hi3G will greet the announcement
with mixed reactions. The 3G Infrastructure Services AB is a join
effort between Vodafone, Hi3G and Orange, established to build a
countrywide 3G infrastructure. Both Vodafone and Hi3G would have
to step up its investment significantly to make up for the exit
of Orange.
>>> Spain's new law to help 3G operators
The Spanish government has stepped up it effort to help out its
3G license holders by proposing a new legislation that would allow
Spanish mobile operators to trade radio spectrum. The implication
of this would permit 3G license holders to sell some or their entire
spectrum band.
"Simply, the legislation recognises that under certain circumstances
this can take place in order to save specific commercial or scientific
projects," said Science and Technology Minister Josep Pique.
Pique rejected claims that the legislation, which could be approved
by the parliament before August, was aimed at allowing the smallest
3G license holder Xfera to withdraw from the market.
Last month, the Spanish government said it will cut the financial
guarantees from 3G mobile operators, reduced from 6.5 million euros
to 1.31 million euros. In return the four 3G license holders promised
to increase investments by 20% this year as well as offer limited
3G service by the second half of 2003 and full commercial service
by mid 2004.
- Spain's new telecom law to allow spectrum trading
http://www.forbes.com/technology/newswire/2003/01/02/rtr836395.html
>>> TD-SCDMA to go commercial in 2004
Chief technology officer of Datang, Li Shihe, said the TD-SCDMA
technology would be ready for large scale commercial use in 2004
at the earliest. The Chinese home grown technology is being tested
by domestic and international firms.
Li defended TD-SCDMA against suggestions that the technology is
inferior to WCDMA and CDMA2000. "The technology is as good
as the others," he said.
Meanwhile, Lu Tingjie, involved in the group that prepared a report
on 3G mobile technology for the Chinese government, said 3G licenses
would definitely be issued in 2003. The likely winners he said would
be China Telecom, China Netcom, China Mobile and China Unicom.
Even so, the Chinese government has no timetable for awarding 3G
license.
China Unicom seems to have snubbed TD-SCDMA by deploying CDMA2000
network. It already has commercial CDMA2000 1X subscribers in some
provinces in China. The operator is expecting to roll out its CDMA2000
1X services nationwide in the first quarter of 2003. There is a
slight chance that the operator may choose in the future to deploy
the TD-SCDMA platform alongside its CDMA2000 network. Analysts say
the Chinese government may force operators to employ TD-SCDMA or
give them incentives for doing so.
- China's 3G Standard Not Ready Till '04 -Developer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=569&ncid=
738&e=4&u=/nm/
20030102/tc_nm/telecoms_china_dc
>>> All eyes on 3G in 2003 after a dismal 2002
After the much promised launch of 3G services in Europe last year
failed to materialised, all eyes will be on Europe this year for
what could be the start of a revival of confidence in the telecom
market. In the first quarter, Hutchison 3G is expected to launch
its long awaited commercial services in Italy and the UK. Its aim
of having one million subscribers in its first year for each of
country is described as ambitious by many analysts.
Vodafone is expecting to launch 3G service in the UK sometime in
the middle of the year. The launch of its Vodafone live! services
across Europe in the latter half of last year has had much success,
giving users a taster of 3G offerings. Users with camera handsets
could snap pictures and send it to MMS compatible handset as well
as downloading games and ringtones. The service has given users
a better understanding of what to expect from 3G.
It will be interesting to see whether countries such as Sweden
will punish its 3G license holders for failing to provide adequate
3G service coverage.
Japan will not go unnoticed this year. NTT DoCoMo has suffered
from low subscriber rates while J-Phone's recent 3G launch lacked
handsets. Many will look to see whether DoCoMo can meet it revised
subscriber numbers of 320,000 by March and whether J-Phone can bring
in enough customers when it is aiming the service at Japanese oversea
travellers.
In Hong Kong, the head of Hutchison Whampoa, Li Ka Shing, said
Hutchison 3G HK will rollout 3G after the first quarter.
Taiwan is expected to launch 3G services this year with Asia Pacific
Broadband Wireless Comm. saying it aims to have commercial CDMA2000
1X service in April. The situation in Taiwan would be similar to
that of Japan, operators deploying a mixture of 3G standards.
****************************
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