NEW YORK-AAPT Ltd. announced last week it awarded Samsung Electronics of South Korea a $205 million turnkey contract to design, construct, operate, maintain and provide systems integration services for its new Code Division Multiple Access network in Australia.
The carrier plans to launch commercial CDMA service for about 6.5 million people by mid-year 2000. AAPT has CDMA spectrum licenses covering nearly 10 million people, or nearly half the country’s population, in Queensland, Western and South Australia, Tasmania, Darwin, Canberra, New South Wales and Victoria.
“We have entered into a partnership with Samsung because we think it is the global leader in CDMA solutions and has both the experience and technical expertise to assist us in providing an innovative mobile and wireless local loop network,” said Larry Williams, AAPT’s chief executive officer.
AAPT already has about 170,000 customers on its Global System for Mobile communications network operating under the Cellular One brand.
“While we expect to see a small percentage of our existing customers migrate from GSM to CDMA … a core focus of our strategy will be to target the migration from fixed networks to local wireless access and to develop a range of value-added services, including data and Internet packages,” said Stephen Picton, group director of strategic development for AAPT.
“We expect the take-up rate of data access services to expand dramatically over the next few years as handset developments come through. We have therefore based our technology platform on the latest international standards, with both IS-95B and 3GIX upgrades planned.”
Picton said AAPT has formed a separate team to develop its CDMA business. The company also has appointed Salomon Smith Barney to advise it on finance options for the CDMA network, including a possible initial public offering.
AAPT already is publicly traded, with institutional investors owning about 35 percent of its shares and retail investors about 15 percent. Telecom New Zealand is the Australian carrier’s largest shareholder, with about 19.8 percent ownership.
Cable & Wireless Optus Ltd. launched a $1.5 billion hostile takeover bid for AAPT earlier this year, but the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission blocked it as being anti-competitive.
AAP Information Services Pty. Ltd., which owns 17.3 percent of AAPT, reported that Telecom New Zealand “is believed to want a larger stake in AAPT, while analysts expect C&W Optus to be a seller at the right price.”
The CDMA network buildout is part of AAPT’s three-pronged expansion strategy.
“The development of our own network-primarily through investment in domestic and international fiber, [local multipoint distribution services] and CDMA technologies-will enable AAPT to broaden its range of services and substantially increase margins,” the company said.
LMDS technology is used to deliver voice, high-speed data and Internet services, bypassing incumbent local exchange and cable TV systems.
