China
Motorola Inc.’s Network Solutions Sector was awarded a $14.5 million contract to install a Global System for Mobile communications 1800 network in China. The contract, signed with Shangdong Mobile Communications Corp., calls for Motorola to deploy the new network in four cities in Shangdong Province. The installation is expected to be completed by mid-year and will serve 150,000 subscribers.
Denmark
Flextronics International Ltd. signed agreements with Bosch Telecom GmbH and Siemens AG to acquire the Bosch manufacturing operation in Pandrup, Denmark, and become Siemens manufacturing partner for Global System for Mobile communications phones at the facility. The value of the agreement is expected to exceed $1 billion in revenue during the next three years. Flextronics intends to integrate its global manufacturing expertise into the new plant and establish a Product Introduction Center to serve other European customers.
Russia
MCT Corp. agreed to purchase MediaOne International’s share in the Russian Telecommunications Development Corp., which provides wireless communications and fixed network switching and transmission services in eight Russian cities. The agreement supersedes an earlier plan to sell these interests to Deutsche Telekom, and is expected to close in the next few months.
Japan
Nokia Corp. introduced its first i-mode enabled phone designed for the Japanese market. The DoCoMo NM502i will be marketed together with Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo. The new phone includes a dedicated i-mode button combined with a compact HyperText Markup Language browser to provide one-touch access to the Internet. Nokia also noted that the NM502i is the only current i-mode product to offer bilingual Japanese/English operations. Sales are expected to start during the second quarter.
