Asia Pacific
Japan
Japan Telecom said it plans to launch third-generation mobile service by October 2001 instead of its originally scheduled December 2001 date. J-Phone, the company’s wireless operator, hopes to better compete with NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s dominant wireless carrier by moving forward the launch date.”We have applied for the 3G license with December of next year in mind, but of course, we would like to begin services as soon as possible,” said Haruo Murakami, Japan Telecom president. J-Phone, which had a subscriber base of more than 8 million users at the end of March, offers the J-Sky wireless Internet service.
The number of mobile subscribers in Japan, including cellular and PHS, reached 60.87 million at the end of August, according to the Telecommunications Carriers Association, an industry association. TCA said the number of subscribers of cellular phones at the end of August was up by 1.2 percent from July to 55.01 million. Due to popular i-mode services, NTT DoCoMo expanded its subscribers by 492,000 from July and reached 32.07 million. Now DoCoMo holds 58 percent of the market share of cellular phones in Japan. The number of subscribers to i-mode as of the end of August reached 11.1 million. PHS subscribers increased by 0.2 percent since July.
China
China’s Ministry of Information Industry and the State Bureau of Technical Supervision are drafting detailed warranty rules for handsets. The rules are expected to be issued before the end of the year and will cover the repair, exchange and refund of mobile handsets. Some manufacturers, such as Motorola Inc., are already offering comprehensive warranties, including exchange of a defective handset within 15 days after purchase and free repair within a year. But publication of detailed rules will prevent numerous disputes from arising and facilitate the marketing of mobile phones.
Cambodia
Cambodia Shinawatra Co., a 100-percent-owned subsidiary of Shin Satellite Public Co. of Thailand, has signed a contract with Huawei Technologies of China for equipment to expand its GSM 1800 cellular phone network. According to Trairat Kaewkerd, general manager of CamShin, “We are increasing our capacity to 35,000 to cover all 23 provinces in Cambodia. CamShin currently covers eight provinces, but we have seen signs that the demand exists for a quality network nationwide. … The contract with Huawei is for base stations, antennas and exchanges,” Trairat added. “We plan to have up to 56 base stations by the end of the year.” CamShin was set up in 1992 to use NMT 450 wireless local loop technology to provide a rapidly deployed basic telephone service in the country. In March 1997, the government modified the contract to extend Cambodia Shinawatra’s license from 15 years to 35 years and allow the introduction of a GSM 1800 MHz cellular phone service. The value of the contract for equipment supply is $4 million. Cambodia Shinawatra intends to spend a total of about $9.5 million on the entire expansion phase, including the cost of site preparation, transmission and associated work. Huawei Technologies also recently won a cellular contract in Laos.
