The below is a compilation of recent announcements and events occurring between February and March 2005. Coverage includes factors affecting the global landscape such as super 3G development, technological milestones, and player movements. A closer look at network expansions and operator movements in Greater China, India, Russia, Japan, and Korea is also provided.

Global Factors

Super 3G Development

Ericsson

Ericsson announced that it will finalize development of specifications for the super 3G standard --  based on HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) -- by 2007.

LG, Nortel

LG Electronics and Nortel have successfully conducted trial runs on the HSDPA services. The live test calls were made at Nortel's lab in France where LG's handsets succeeded in downloading audio and video data in at a speed of 1.4 megabits per second in a moving vehicle.  

GSM/EDGE

Global Mobile Supplies Association

The association announced that over the last six months the global market saw launches of 90 GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications)/EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution) mobile phones, registering a three-fold jump. A total of 131 operators in 76 countries have committed to the EDGE standard, a 56% increase year-on-year. 55 EDGE deployments are in the US, 42 in Europe, 23 in Asia, and 11 in the Middle East and Africa. Currently, there are 63 GSM/EDGE networks offering commercial EDGE-enabled services in 41 countries. 

Technology Milestones

Nokia

Nokia rolled out a new multimedia messaging service that allows users to send voice clips over the phone. Called "Nokia Xpress audio messaging", the solution adopts a menu through which subscribers can record and edit audio messages before sending them to all MMS (Multimedia Messaging System)-enabled GSM mobile phones. The new audio messaging menu will be integrated in several of Nokia handsets slated for launch in 2005.

Regional Statistics & Player Movements

Greater China

Ministry of Information Industry, China

According to the MII, the Chinese market added nearly five million mobile subscribers in January 2004, pushing the total subscriber base to 340 million. Fixed-line subscribers totaled 316 million at the end of January. 

The MII also said in 2005 China is expected to achieve a combined number of at least 100 million for both fixed-line and mobile services. The penetration rates of fixed-line and mobile services will likely reach 27.6% and 30% respectively.

China Mobile

The operator is planning to invest US$7.8 billion to expand its 2G network in 2005, posting a 47% increase from the previous budget. The investment will be revised further upward if China Mobile begins to deploy 3G networks in 2005. The operators also projected that, excluding 3G investment, its capital expenditure will be US$6.5 billion in 2006 and US$5.5 billion in 2007. 

China Unicom

To meet rising demand for mobile data usage, China Unicom has purchased an additional US$6.4 million MAG (Mobile Access Gateway licenses) from Openwave Systems. The Chinese operator had already purchased 11.4 million MAG licenses from Openwave in early 2002.

ZTE

ZTE and Alcatel have forged an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturing) deal, in which ZTE will integrate its CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) radio access portfolio into Alcatel's CDMA offerings. Devices will include ZTE's CDMA radio access solutions, such as 1xRTT, EV-DO (Evolution-Data Only), EV-DV (Evolution Data and Voice), CDMA 45, and Alcatel 5020 Spatial Atrium mobile core network solution. Through this partnership, the two companies hope to address rising demand for CDMA-based fixed-line and mobile broadband services in the US and Korea.

Japan

NTT DoCoMo

The Japanese operators said at the of February that its 3G FOMA subscriptions have surpassed the ten million mark and are expected to rise to equal its 2G subscriber base by the first half of 2006. For 2005, NTT DoCoMo is looking to attain a subscriber base of 10.8 million for the 3G service and 37.4 million for the 2G services. Furthermore, NTT DoCoMo will invest 885 billion Yen (US$8.5 billion; US$1=104.1 Yen) in capital spending during 2005 to expand 3G infrastructure deployment as well as improve services.

Nevertheless, NTT DoCoMo is planning to quit its loss-making PAS (Personal Access System) business and focus resources on 3G services. It will stop accepting new PAS subscribers as early as April and gradually retreat from the service in two to three years.

Also, the operator will no long sign up new pre-paid subscribers after March 31, 2005, as part of its anti-fraud measures. NTT DoCoMo's decision is expected to put other major operators under pressure to follow suit at a time when prepaid phones are increasingly becoming convenient tool for fraudsters to gain consumers' personal information.

KDDI

KDDI, Okinawa Cellular, and Square Enix have joined hands in setting up a portal site, which allows handset users to access mobile phone-based games. Under the deal, KDDI and Okinawa will roll out the EZ Game Street! service while Square Enix offers its assistance in building the portal site. Handsets users will be able to access the site's more than 350 games offered by 43 companies including

Square Enix, Sony Computer, Entertainment, and Namco.

Softbank

Softbank announced in mid-February that the company posted a net loss of approximately 26.6 billion for the fiscal third quarter ending December 2004. Softbank attributed the loss to advertising and promotional costs for its fixed-line telephone and broadband services.

However, sales climbed 89% year-on-year to 258 billion Yen (US$2.5), as a result of acquisition moves, such as the acquisition of Japan Telecom in 2004. Additionally, Softbank expects to finalize the purchase of the Japan unit of British telecom company Cable & Wireless PLC later in 2005.

In a separate development, Softbank's application for a license to install relay stations for a mobile service in the 800MHz spectrum was rejected by the communications ministry, which cited the current spectrum is not enough for another player.  The 800MHz band was reallocated to NTT DoCoMo and KDDI in August 2004.

India

In a move that further liberalizes the market, the Indian government raised the allowable foreign ownership in telecoms from 49% to 74%. Such policy is expected to encourage existing investors to increase their India holdings while luring new players. However, if a foreign stake surpass 49%, the Communications Ministry said that the majority of the directors should be Indians.

In addition, to attract more foreign players, the Indian government said it is not committed to one single technology and is now drawing up a technology-neutral spectrum policy. At the issue is the 1900 MHz band, which GSM operators want exclusively for 3G services. However, CDMA operators are also looking to share the same spectrum.

BSNL

BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) will start to deploy 1,200 base transmitting stations in the next six months, which are expected to hold another 850,000 subscribers and consequently push the total capacity to nearly 1.5 million. The company also said that it will add 30,000 capacity via CDMA-based WLL (Wireless Local Loop) technology by the end of the current fiscal year.

BSNL is also planning to expand telephone connections in Hassan Telecom District from the current 100,000 to 300,000 by 2007. Most of the connections will be based on the GSM technology while approximately 20,000 fixed-line connections will be offered via WLL technology.

The CDMA Development Group

The CDMA Development Group announced that India's CDMA subscriber base surged over five-fold to reach 14 million between December 2002 and December 2004, while CDMA market share rose from 2% to 25%.

Shyam Telecom

The Indian operator of CDMA services has inked a deal to purchase US$26 million worth of equipment from Ericsson. By installing this equipment, Shyam Telecom will be able to add another 500,000 mobile and fixed-line subscribers in the next two years.

Trai

The Telecom regulator said in mid March that India has reached a teledensity of nine - nine phones for every 100 people, at the end of February 2005. There were approximately 97 million phone subscribers by the end of February - 51.4 million were mobile phone connections for both GSM and CDMA while 45.6 million were fixed-line connections.

Korea

Information and Communications Ministry

Korea's Information and Communications Ministry has ruled out possibilities for fixed-line operators such as KT and Hanaro to offer Web-based television services, citing that technological and regulatory issues need to be solved first. KT and Hanaro have attempted to launch Web-based TV services as another growth momentum in the high-speed Internet market, a move that has derived strong opposition from cable TV operators.

On a separate occasion, the ministry, which sometimes steps in the service market to assure fair competition, said there is no plan afoot to reduce mobile phone charges in 2005. This decision will allow Korean operators to invest in new services through current scope. SK Telecom was asked to cut mobile tariffs by 3.7% to help relieve inflationary pressure in 2004. 

In addition, staring from March 2005, Korean operators are required to install a unique identification code on top of the current electronic serial number on handsets in order to curb mobile phone fraud. Access to telephone networks will be denied without the right combination code. For current mobile phone users, the government will implement a fraud management system, which can trace stolen or cloned phones through location-based information.

KT

KT announced that it will increase its capital investment by 20% from 2004 to less than 2.2 trillion Won (US$2.2 billion; US$1=1000.4 Won). 

Russia

The Communications Ministry will put its officials on the boards of all subsidiaries of Svyaninvest, a national telecoms holding, to strengthen the government's control before it is privatized in 2005. Svyazinvest has proposed putting three ministry officials on the boards of Uralsvyazinform and Central Telegraph. Uralsvyazinform offers services to the Urals regions while Central Telegraph provides fixed-line services to Moscow and the surrounding region. 

VimpelCom, the second largest mobile operator in Russia, has obtained 13 million new numbers for use from regulatory authorities. This allocation will further assist VimpelCom's capacity crunch. The operator will use these numbers in Moscow, the Volga and central regions, the North Caucasus, north and the northwest, far east, Siberia, and in the Urals.