China
Chinese Internet portal Sohu.com said its content will be expanded to mobile networks in several Chinese provinces. The content, including news, stock quotes, travel information and weather data, is used today by operators in nine provinces. China has experienced only lackluster wireless Internet use, with only about 2,000 subscribers nationwide. China Mobile recently moved back plans to begin charging for Wireless Application Protocol service until September.
Nokia Corp. was awarded a $60 million contract to supply a complete Global System for Mobile communications 1800 network to the Zhejiang Mobile Communications Co. Ltd. in China. The contract was signed with Nokia Hangxing Telecommunications Systems Co. Ltd. and Beijing Nokia Mobile Telecommunications Co. Ltd., two of Nokia’s joint ventures in China. The network, in conjunction with the existing GSM 900 networks, will enable automatic dual-band roaming on the system and bring enhanced coverage and additional capacity, according to Nokia.
Poland
Formus Communications said the Polish Ministry of Communications granted it an additional telecommunications operator’s license. Formus said the new license covers all of Poland and gives Formus Polska, its Polish subsidiary, the right to transmit data within any radio frequency available, as well as the right to execute point-to-point radio transmission. Formus Polska will use the license to expand its existing high-speed broadband access network. In addition, the Polish Radio Communication Agency allocated Formus Polska permits to use 3.5 GHz spectrum in 33 Polish cities and extended its 28 GHz permit to an additional 40 cities, bringing the total number of cities under the company’s service to 51 within 28 GHz spectrum and 33 within 3.5 GHz spectrum.
Australia
Australian telecommunications operator Telstra Corp. Ltd. and Nortel Networks demonstrated a 144 kilobits per second wireless Web browsing, video and remote file transfer over a live 800 MHz cdma2000 network as part of their high-speed data trials.
