Japan
Toshiba Corp. said it would slash production of its domestic dynamic random access memory chip by 60 percent as part of its response to a flagging economy. The company said it would shut down a production line at its major semiconductor plant in Yokkaichi.
Nokia Corp. has signed a contract to supply a wideband CDMA mobile packet switching system and radio-access network to Japanese carrier J-Phone Group. The J-Phone group, which has 10 million customers, hopes to launch its W-CDMA service in 2002.
Australia
Brightpoint Inc. announced its Brightpoint Australia Ltd. subsidiary has signed an agreement to sell and distribute Motorola mobile-phone accessories in Australia.
China
China hopes to increase the number of its phone users by 46.4 million users this year to 132 million, according to Xu Xiaotian, chief of the Ministry of Information Industry’s electronics and information product administration department. The MII said it had 85.26 million mobile-phone users at the end of 2000 and 117 million users in June this year.
Gambia
Siemens AG has signed a $6.6 million contract to build a GSM network for carrier Africell in the 900 MHz band. Africell expects between 15,000 and 50,000 subscribers within three years.
Chile
Nortel Networks Corp. says it has signed a contract of about $12 million to expand the wireless networks of Smartcom PCS in Chile. “This follows a two-year, $65 million agreement signed late last year and includes supply and installation of cdmaOne and cdma2000 1xRTT radio base station equipment and infrastructure,” said Nortel in statement.
