SINGAPORE-Governments in Asia will issue licenses of third-generation (3G) cellular networks to around 40 operators in 11 countries within the next year, representatives from several equipment vendors said at the CommunicAsia show here recently. And 3G deployments may begin in the most advanced markets...
SINGAPORE-The dominant rise of prepaid cards compared with subscription-based accounts has been the defining element of Vietnam's mobile phone environment during the last six months.Almost entirely due to the introduction of these cards, by the end of May, the number of mobile-phone users had...
Lucent Technologies Inc. and Sprint PCS announced they will conduct a joint trial of 1XEvolution technology, a third-generation technology based on High Data Rate technology.The trial will begin over the Sprint PCS network in the first half of 2001 and involves testing and verification...
HONG KONG-The CDMA Development Group last week announced support for Qualcomm Inc.'s High Data Rate technology as a third-generation technology, but agreed to leave room open for other competing technologies such as Motorola Inc.'s and Nokia Corp.'s 1xtreme technology.The CDG has submitted the proposal...
SEOUL, South Korea-Korea Telecom has agreed to purchase a 48-percent stake in Korean wireless operator Hansol M.com for $2.6 billion. Bell Canada International Inc., American International Group Inc. and South Korea's Hansol Group agreed to sell their combined 48 percent of the country's smallest...
HELSINKI, Finland-Nokia Corp. and SK Telecom announced extensive planning guidelines for third-generation IMT-2000 networks including coverage design, radio resource management, handover parameter planning and other planning and optimization procedures.Nokia said several hundred of its 3G planning and optimization experts will be trained jointly by...
SEOUL, South Korea-Korean operator SK Telecom said it will launch commercial cdma2000 1X service in the fourth-quarter, using equipment from Samsung Electronics.Samsung and SK Telecom said the 1X system can be linked with a video-on-demand server to provide movies, music videos and Internet services...
The wireless industry shouldn't be surprised about the confusion surrounding China Unicom's cdmaOne technology deployment plans in China.After all, the prospect of widespread cdmaOne technology deployments have been uncertain for at least two years, resulting in a continuing political saga. One thing is for...
Bad news hit the cdmaOne community last week as the South Korean government put a stop to cdmaOne handset subsidies and uncertainty lingered about China Unicom's plans to deploy the technology.Though technology stocks across the board took a hit last week, Qualcomm Inc.'s stock...
South Korean mobile phone carrier Hansol M.com said talks to sell a controlling stake in the company to either Korea Telecom or the LG Group had broken down. The problems centered around differences over prices, according to press reports.Both Korea Telecom and the LG...
Kyocera Corp. hopes to do what no Japanese handset manufacturer has been able to do to date. It wants to become a dominate global vendor.To do that, Kyocera needs to gain a significant share of the market in North America, analysts say. Kyocera has...
SEOUL, South Korea-SK Telecom, South Korea's largest wireless operator, acquired 51.2 percent of Shinsegi Telecom from Pohang Iron and Steel for about $961.2 million. Posco will hold 6.5 percent of SK Telecom shares.The deal gives SK Telecom about 60 percent of the country's wireless...
SEOUL, South Korea-South Korea's major telecommunications operators are scrambling to reshape their businesses to secure a position ahead of the competition this year for the much-coveted third-generation (3G) licenses.However, the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC), which will handle the licensing process, is far...
Kyocera Corp. hopes to do what no Japanese handset manufacturer has done to date. It wants to become a dominate global vendor.Kyocera needs to gain a significant share of the market in North America to accomplish this goal, analysts say. Kyocera has made some...
NEW YORK-Consumer perception of Korea Telecom as "slow moving and bureaucratic, but quite good at service provision," has helped, not hindered, its subsidiary Korea Telecom Freetel, said Sang-Chul Lee, president and chief executive officer.The Code Division Multiple Access personal communications services provider, which holds...
HandsetsKyoceraKyocera plans to begin marketing at the end of July in Japan its VP-210 VisualPhone, a PHS phone with a built-in camera that can transmit and receive images in real time at a rate of two frames per second. The handset incorporates a CMOS...
Lucent Technologies announced three technical initiatives designed to increase capacity in TDMA equipment. The company announced a series of software enhancements developed by Bell Laboratories to increase frequency re-use; as well as new PCS Minicell growth hardware designed to provide higher capacity for traffic-intensive...
NEW YORK-Moody's Investors Service has changed to stable from negative its outlook on $279 million in Ba1-rated debt securities issued by SK Telecom Co. Ltd., Seoul, South Korea."The change in outlook is driven by strong growth in SK Telecom's cellular subscriber base and a...
SEOUL, South Korea-Despite the financial crisis in Asia, the wireless telephony market has performed better than expected in South Korea. The number of cellular and PCS subscribers in the country more than doubled from 5.6 million at the end October 1997 to more than...
The battle among South Korea's five mobile phone carriers has become so intense that the Ministry of Information and Communication has prodded the carriers to voluntarily address problems brought on by the unrestrained competition.The fervent competition began last October when three personal communications services...
NEW YORK-After a six-month review, Moody's Investors Service July 22 confirmed the investment-grade rating of Baa1 on about $280 million in dollar-denominated debt issued by Seoul-based SK Telecom Co. Ltd., South Korea's largest wireless carrier.However, the rating agency also characterized as "negative" the rating...
Bell Canada International Inc. said it will acquire 29 percent of South Korean personal communications services operator Hansol PCS Co. Ltd. for $180 million.Hansol is one of three PCS operators in South Korea that launched service in October. The consortium is led by the...
Ericsson forms office mobility unitATLANTA-Ericsson Inc. announced the formation of the Wireless Services unit in response to the increasing need for wireless communications in the workplace.Ericsson said the new unit will provide a wireless office solution based on the Interim Standard-136 Time Division Multiple...
ATLANTA-While it's evident most of the world's standards bodies will adopt some form of Code Division Multiple Access technology for next- generation systems, the CDMA Development Group said it is concerned about the fragmented versions of the technology that could be adopted around the...
