Phone Card

China Netcom, China’s second largest fixed-line telephone company, has opened a London office to act as its European headquarters.

China Netcom wants to use its global telecoms network to serve the voice and data needs of Chinese companies with operations in Europe. It also wants to get the telecom business of European companies with operations in China.

The move by China Netcom is part of efforts by Chinese companies to expand overseas under the Beijing government’s ‘go global’ policy. The government wants Chinese companies to compete with US, Japanese and European companies.

China Netcom’s telecoms network extends to cities in Asia, Europe and the US, and it is looking to expand further.

The London office was opened by Jidong Zhao, China Netcom’s senior vice-president.

It will be up against serious competition — European and US telecoms companies such as BT, AT&T and Verizon Communications.

Note that China Telecom, China’s largest fixed-line company, opened a London office in 2005.

Huawei and ZTE, the increasingly powerful Chinese telecoms equipment makers, opened London offices in 2002 and 2004.

Telefónica, the Spanish telecoms company with a leading presence in Latin America, has said it hopes to increase its minority stake in China Netcom to 10% by the end of the year.

Meanwhile Vodafone, the UK mobile phone group, has a 3% stake in China Mobile, China’s largest mobile operator, which plans to open a London office early next year.
Source: Financial Times

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The Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO) and Entrepreneur Magazine have announced that Koni Corporation has been named number two of the Top 50 …

The People’s Insurance Company (Group) of China, or PICC, has agreed to invest RMB1.5 billion (US$202 million) in Datang Mobile, a major developer of China’s 3G mobile phone technology.

The investment will finance the development of the long-awaited home-grown 3G technology TD-SCDMA (time division synchronous code division multiple access), and therefore hasten 3G licenses in China. This is the biggest single investment by a Chinese insurance firm in telecommunications.

Wu Yan, PICC’s president, said, ‘It is an agreement between two giants and it will boost the development of the Chinese telecommunications industry and lead to further innovation.’

But will it happen? Will the home-grown TD-SCDMA become the 3G standard for China, and hopefully other countries, in the future. Some of the comments made were not overly encouraging.

Sandy Shen, a Gartner analyst based in Shanghai, said, ‘TD-SCDMA is the last straw for Datang Group, otherwise it is over. It is an uncertain risk for strategic investors as it will probably take a long time for them to get returns.’

For reasons which are probably concerned with letting the home technology have first bite at the market China has not released the timetable for issuing licenses and Sandy Shen said it will also take one or two years for a new 3G network to make a profit.

A good bet is that this standard will be announced officially around April next year. This, in truth, will not be in time for the 2008 Olympics. Yes, it will be available in certain cities by that time. Yes, there will be handsets that can deal with it. But a full-blown coverage of the Olympics with access China-wide now looks totally improbable.
Source: China.org.cn

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