Thursday, April 23, 2009

Everest soon in mobile coverage.

Thursday, April 23, 2009: The world's highest mountain peak will soon be getting cell phone service with Nepal Telecom (NT) announcing plans to install a satellite antenna in Gorak Shep, located at an altitude of 5,160 metres. Nepal Telecom will be providing both GSM and CDMA handsets with cell reception on Mt. Everest starting in June.

Anoop Ranjan Bhattarai, chief, satellite division, Nepal Telecom, told myrepublica.com, "We are planning to commence the service by mid-June this year. We hope it will provide an alternative to those currently relying on satellite phone services such as the one provided by Thuraya."

NT has installed satellite antennas in around seven locations in the Mt Everest region, including Lukla and Namche Bazar, located at 2,800 metres and 3,440 metres above sea level, respectively. "All these antennas can smoothly handle around 3,000 calls at once. But we will increase the number of terminals depending on the traffic in the region," said NT.

Nepal Telecom currently has around 2.8 million cellphone subscribers across the country.

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Reliance Postpaid Connection available in Mumbai

Thursday, April 23, 2009: Reliance Mobile GSM Service has commenced the commercial roll-out of its post-paid services in Mumbai. Reliance Mobile has launched its GSM post-paid services with a plan of Rs 375. The company has bundled numerous value benefits as part of its effort to target post-paid high ARPU customers. The company is offering 750 free local minutes as part of this plan and is also offering a local call rate of Rs 0.50/minute to any network as well as fixed line phone, along with a STD call rate of Rs 1 to any network across India.

The roll-out of its post-paid services is the second phase of Reliance Mobile's GSM foray. The launch of post-paid services follows the pre-paid launch early this year.

"The Reliance Mobile GSM post-paid service entails offering a unique value proposition fine-tuned as per the needs of nearly 14 Million GSM customers in Mumbai circle. This Customer Experience Programme is in line with Reliance Communications' philosophy of making world-class telephony services accessible and affordable to the masses," said Akshay Kumar, regional head, West, Reliance Communications.

Reliance Mobile GSM Service is also rolling out special SMS packs in the Mumbai market. Currently, the company has announced two SMS packs. For light SMS users, the company is offering free 100 local and national SMS bundle at a monthly charge of Rs 25. For mega SMS users, Reliance Mobile is offering free 1,000 local and national SMS bundle for a monthly charge of Rs 60 only.

For low-usage subscribers, Reliance Mobile is offering Rs 199 plan as part of its GSM post-paid launch in Mumbai. The company has bundled a local usage discount of Rs 150 with this plan.

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Huawei Jumping Frog

Chinese vendor Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is on course to break into the top-four telecom equipment vendor ranking this year, and may even leapfrog its way into second place in the revenues table if it meets its targets and other vendors suffer from the economic downturn.

Huawei today unveiled its annual report for 2008, which includes its audited financial figures. According to the vendor, it generated revenues of $18.33 billion last year, and net income of $1.15 billion. (See Huawei Reports 2008 Revenues of $18.3B.)

In the telecom vendor league table, that puts Huawei in fifth position, which is where it was last year too: In fact, the 2008 vendor ranking order hasn't changed year-on-year.

Table 1: How Huawei Stacks Up Against Other Vendors


2008 revenues in US$* 2008 revenues in local currency
Cisco** $39.5 billion Not applicable
Ericsson $24.47 billion 208.9 billion Swedish kronor
Alcatel-Lucent $21.97 billion €17 billion
Nokia Siemens Networks $19.78 billion €15.3 billion
Huawei $18.33 billion 125 billion Chinese Yuan Renminbi
Nortel Networks $10.4 billion Not applicable
ZTE $6.49 billion 44.3 billion Chinese Yuan Renminbi
* Converted at exchange rates sourced on April 22, 2009
** Revenues for Cisco from most recent full fiscal year ending July 26, 2008

What has changed, though, is how close Huawei is to the leading pack: Check out this Light Reading story from last year to see how far behind Huawei was lagging in 2007.

Now, though, the Chinese giant is breathing down the neck of Nokia Siemens Networks , and, if Huawei can maintain its momentum and convert contract wins into revenues in the same manner as it has done for the past two years, it could find itself much higher up the ranking for 2009.

With so much 3G rollout business to be won in China this year, and with its feet firmly embedded in many of the markets that are still growing despite the global economic mess, Huawei has estimated that the value of its 2009 contract sales -- quite different from reported revenues -- will be $30 billion. (See Huawei Predicts 29% Growth in 2009.)

As one of the tables in our story on Huawei's reported 2008 revenues shows, the ratio of actual revenues to contract sales has averaged at 78.6 percent during the past two years. If it can maintain that ratio and hit its contract sales target of $30 billion (and Huawei has a history of achieving, and often exceeding, its targets), it's on course to generate revenues of $23.6 billion this year.

Given the forecasts that have been made by the likes of Nokia Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), and Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC) during the past few months, it's just possible that Huawei, in terms of revenues expressed in U.S. dollars, could climb the vendor ranking table all the way to second place, with only Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) to catch.

It could even be argued that with Cisco's enterprise customers generating a sizeable portion of its sales, Huawei might even be on course to be the largest supplier of equipment and services to the telecom operator community this year.

That's only a possibility, of course. Currency exchange fluctuations and any number of other factors, including the performance of Huawei's chief rivals and even potential acquisitions, could still leave it chasing the pack by the end of this year. What's clear, though, is that Huawei has joined the elite club of major vendors, and its aggression and international aspirations are likely to keep it there. (See NSN Linked to Nortel Asset Bid.)

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