Tuesday, November 3, 2015 at 9:06AM As 4G sweeps all before it in China, operators are scaling back their once-ambitious Wi-Fi networks. But they're still running nearly 6m access points - nearly 50% higher than the total of 2G, 3G and 4G cellular base stations.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015 at 7:44PM The subsea cable system is the biggest physical part of the global telecom network, yet is obscure even to many in the industry. Fortunately, there's been a spate of worthwhile reporting and analysis on subsea networks in recent months.
bandwidth, subsea cables in International Telecoms Wednesday, August 26, 2015 at 11:29AM Beijing has just swapped around its telco chiefs. Two have done a direct swap and the third has retired, replaced by a government official to take over the third operator.
As China’s economic management comes under global scrutiny, it’s a neat illustration of how it sees the game differently from the rest of the world.
Under the changes, Chang Xiaobing is the now chairman and party secretary at China Telecom, positions he previously held at China Unicom. Former China Telecom chief Wang Xiaochu replaces him at Unicom.
Over at China Mobile, the new man is Shang Bing, previously a vice-minister at MIIT. He replicates the path followed by retiring Xi Guohua, who moved to the operator from the MIIT in 2011, taking over as chairman in 2012.
The appointments were revealed in a series of announcements on Monday morning by the CCP Organisation Department – another key point: leadership posts in large and politically-sensitive SOEs are all CCP positions.
This isn't the first time the party has simultaneously rung the changes among the telco top tier. In 2004 it carried out a similar reshuffle in which, Unicom chairman Wang Jianzhou became China Mobile president, Shang Bing was promoted to Unicom president and China Telecom vice-president Chang Xiaobing became CU chairman and party secretary.
And why?
As a commentary in Sina Tech says, many analysts at that time thought the reshuffle would allow the chiefs to see the world through each other’s eyes and “avoid excessive competition.” Clearly the party bosses think it's been a success.
Punters think differently, however. The most popular comment under the most popular Sina story – focusing on China Mobile – declares: “You scum. All your packages are a fraud.”
The changes come on the heels of mediocre interim results. For all its dominance in 4G, China Mobile earnings fell by nearly 1% and revenue rose just 4.9%. China Telecom’s net shrank 4% and only China Unicom showed improvement, with a 4.5% hike in income. No one is suggesting the leadership changes are intended to address any of the issues facing the three.
Final point: none of the new execs is female. All of the nine new appointees at China Mobile are male.
CCP, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom in Telecoms China Wednesday, July 29, 2015 at 11:08AM Angry villagers in Jiangxi, southern China, have attacked a mobile base station under construction because they feared it would destroy 'dragons.'
A man who smashed the base station equipment with a wooden club during the attack in mid-June has been taken into custody, website C114 reports.
The residents of Mao village in Guangfeng district, Shangrao, had objected to the new tower, sited on a hillside, because they believed its transmissions would harm their health and destroy the fengshui 'dragons' in the hill.
The entire base station, under construction by the new state-owned tower company, China Communications Facilities Services Corp, required rebuilding after the attack. Police said the equipment had incurred 7,934 yuan ($1277) in damages.
base station in Mobile Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 12:40AM About that robust Huawei 1H result: it’s mostly about the device.
After the vendor yesterday reported a 30% boost in first-half sales to 175.9 billion yuan ($28.3 billion), the consumer group today issued its own mini-statement.
Like the company, it’s on a considerable roll, only more so. Revenue for the division increased a hefty 69% year-on-year to 56.3b yuan. It now accounts for 32% of the total, up from 24% this time last year.
Devices have become a big part of Huawei, and perhaps never more so in this period. Of the 40.1b yuan extra topline revenue, almost three-fifths came from the device team. While that includes tablets, wearable and smart home gear, smartphones are far and away the biggest part. Smartphone revenue rose 87% to 44.9b yuan, which the company attributed to a “focus on mid to high-end handsets.”
Unit numbers are impressive, too, with shipments up 39%. Huawei had an 8.8% market share in April, according to Gfk, while Gartner ranked it fourth in Q1 behind Samsung, Lenovo and Apple.
Perhaps the big message here is not just the financials but that Huawei has now become a smartphone as well as a carrier equipment heavyweight. Handset quality, like market share, has been building since it decided four years ago to go after the device market.
So is the brand. In a media briefing Huawei reminds that last year it became the first ever Chinese brand on the Interbrand top 100, and it ranks 79th on the BrandZ chart of valuable brands.
The device group is well ahead of its $16b revenue target for 2015. It's now aiming for $20b.
Huawei in China Vendors , Handsets