Telcoflash: Telecom Market News

ALU has signed a $6bn, 3-year procurement deal with Verizon Wireless, to further increase the coverage and capacity of its CDMA2000 1xEV-DO RevA network. ALU will also provide IMS solution, microwave equipment and optical and wireless transmission products....

Tellabs is expected to report lower gross margin in 1Q07 and 2Q07, due to the increasing portion of new optical gear (with lower margin) in its overall sales. JP Morgan has estimated that gross margin would drop to 38% (a 9-year low) in 2Q07.

Tata Consultancy (India) plans to buy a minority stake in T-System, a DT unit in return for $1bn in services and local media news. Maxis (Malaysia) may buy a stake in Sri lanka Telecom, on a possible partial sale by NTT of its 35% stake in Sri Lanka Telecom....

China Telecom would slash PHS investments and continue to control costs and expenses. Belgacom is launching VOIP services (I-Talk) in Belgium. DoCoMo plans to stop its pager business next week. In Japan, about 140 Japanese cable operators are partnering...

Malawi ' s telecoms regulator, Macra, has announced that there are five bidders for the country's third mobile operator license, including Millennium Global Telecom, Econet Wireless and three local firms. Turkey is expected to grant 3G licenses this year....

In Malawi, Celtel currently has 356k mobile customers and Telecom Networks Malawi 178k. Mobile penetration is just above 4%. China Telecom' s fixed-line subscriber base reached 223m (+6.2%) in 2006, of which 28.3m broadband (up 7.3m in 2006). China had...

China Telecom posted 2006 profit fell almost 3% to $3.5bn, on revenues of $22.6bn, up 3%. Local phone revenues decreased 3.5%, but internet service revenues grew 32%. EBITDA improved 4% to $11bn. Chunghwa Telecom reports 2006 revenues of $5.7bn, up 1%,...

Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan) has appointed Chang Feng-Hsiung as executive senior VP. Vyyo (USA) has named Wayne Davis as its new CEO and Jim Chiddix as vice chairman of its board. Telefonica has appointed Luis Miguel Gilperez Lopez to the board of directors...

I did not cover the fair, but what I read on the big international exhibition is relatively thin. Few reports and few news, yet. Among the hottest topics were IPTV, mobile TV, digital radio, BPL and WiFi/WLAN. Several BPL products were introduced by Cisco/...

The IPTV market is hot, so it is quite normal that players in the game try to create an open, standards-based solution. Vendors and carriers have a lot of interest to use non-proprietary solutions, so the Open IPTV Forum seems a serious initiative to...