Alcatel-Lucent has secured in early December a US$230 million order by China Telecom to increase the capacity and coverage of its mobile network country-wide. The contract with its Chinese flagship entity, Alcatel Shanghai Bell, commits the group to provide end-to-end CDMA wireless networking solutions for China Telecom in 56 cities within nine provinces.
After repeated delays, China is set to award 3G licenses by beginning of 2009. China's Minister of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) Li Yizhong announced on December 12 that 3G network licenses will be issued by the beginning of next year and the country's three restructured telcos are expected to invest CNY 200 billion (US$29 billion).
As the Internet and cellular services become further integrated, a battle appears to be brewing with several big players eyeing the money to be made from e-commerce sites and fast developing social networking services in China.
A recent IDATE report confirmed that the number of worldwide FTTx subscribers grew by more than 23 percent between December 2007 and June 2008.
While Asia-Pacific continues to take the lead in the FTTx race, Europe and North America are also seeing increased FTTx subscriber growth.