SINGAPORE-Numerous announcements about Code Division Multiple Access technology came out of last week’s CDMA World Congress in Singapore. The event was attended by about 600 people from 40 countries.
Motorola Inc. has formed a joint venture with two Chinese entities to manufacture CDMA infrastructure products in China. The venture will have headquarters in Hangzhou, in the Xiasha development zone. Production is scheduled to begin by year’s end. Partners are Motorola’s Cellular Infrastructure Group, China Posts and Telecommunications Industry Corp. and the Hangzhou Communications Equipment Factory (Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications).
Qualcomm Inc. won a multi-year contract valued at $24 million from JSC Sviazinform Chelyabinsk Region of the Russian Federation to plan and install a digital wireless local loop CDMA system in Chelyabinsk, an industrial center of about 4 million people east of the Ural Mountains. Qualcomm also will supply CDMA infrastructure and phone equipment. A multiphase deployment will begin immediately, Qualcomm said.
Motorola’s Cellular Infrastructure Group has won a contract from Telecel International to install a CDMA cellular system in the African city of Lusaka, Zambia. Installation is scheduled to begin in June; commercial service may begin later this year. The network will be deployed in three phases to serve 10,000 subscribers.
Qualcomm said it has opened new offices in Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea to handle operations, sales, marketing and support of CDMA in the Asian region. The company already has offices in New Delhi, India and Beijing. Qualcomm plans to continue to expand its resources throughout Asia.
Motorola’s CIG also has received a letter of intent to deploy CDMA cellular technology in Lima, Peru. Telefonica del Peru hopes to lay CDMA over its existing Advanced Mobile Phone Service analog network. Service is scheduled to begin in October. Motorola says this will be Latin America’s first commercial CDMA system. Some Time Division Multiple Access technology has been used in Peru.
While CDMA manufacturer Qualcomm admits it is only now ramping up for high equipment production, Motorola claims it has shipped more than 1,000 commercial CDMA cell sites. Plans call for another 3,000 CDMA cell sites to be shipped by the end of 1996.”
The CDMA network launched last September in Hong Kong claims to have more than 20,000 subscribers. The operator is Hutchison Telecom; equipment provider is Motorola. The partners say they expect the number of subscribers to double to 40,000 by July. Hutchison is migrating customers from its analog system to CDMA. The system was originally installed in 1994; testing ran from December 1994 until September 1995.
