The deteriorating quality of mobile calls

I have seen it happen so often, it seems to have become routine. The mobile phone rings. You cannot understand the person at the other side of the line. You end the connection and use a fixed line - if available - to call the person back.

My feeling is that the connectivity of mobile phones in China has been deteriorating. Maybe I'm wrong and I'm just quite often located in some dead corners without coverage. But it looks like investments in the quality have been lagging, perhaps ahead of the still not formal launch of 3G.

Is IPTV going to save China Telecom?

Yes, if we may believe Wei Leiping, China Telecom's technical chief, talking to XFN. Unfortunately, there is enough reason for some panic at the offices of one of China's largest state-owned telecom providers.
China Telecom is confined to the fixed lines, and has been overtaken by mobile connections already some years ago. Of course, it does not mean that fixed lines are going to disappear, but growth will be impossible. Whether China Telecom will get a 3G license, alone or with another telecom provider is very unclear.
Unfortunately, the permission for IPTV is not really enough to get it rolling. Current "broadband" connections in China are of such a poor quality that IPTV is technically impossible. Now, that seems a problem if you want to go for IPTV.

Unicom "testing" WiMax in 21 provinces

China Tech News picks up the rumor in Chinese media that China Unicom, the country's second largest mobile telecom provider, is testing the WiMax technology in 21 provinces.

China Unicom is also said to have compiled a feasibility report on the WiMax network. However, the reports say that the work on WiMax will be stopped for a while in the coming days, for China Unicom needs to consider a suitable business pattern to run the network. There is still no word on when full roll-out of the service will begin.

One thing is certain: 21 provinces stands for almost half the country, so we are talking about a pretty huge test, if the rumor proves to be true. The story comes as the number one mobile provider China Mobile is "testing" the Chinese standard for 3G ahead of the official licensing. Such a head start for China Mobile, in figures already the largest telecom provider in the world, would put the remaining Chinese telco's in a disadvantaged position. Obvious, China Unicom would need a strategy like this to survive in the longer run.
WiMax is a wireless technology that is mainly pushed by Intel, but has not yet been deployed on a large scale. Base station can cover huge areas - compared to WiFi or traditional mobile solutions - and are therefore easier to deploy. They can provide real broadband connectivity for a fairly low price.

Today: a Red Herring day

Vincent Lo

Five o'clock this morning rang the phone. A PR-officer of Red Herring on the line who wanted to invite me for their Wireless Conference May 28-30 in Beijing. Very kind of course, but why at five in the morning? Obvious the concept of time zones is still hard to grasp for some people.
Anyway, I just found the invitation in my email box and the meeting looks quite OK to me.

Red Herring Wireless will feature keynote speeches from industry leaders, roundtable discussions led by CEOs of emerging firms and corporate presentations from CEOs of private technology companies. Notable presenters include Hamadoun Toure, General Secretary of ITU; Dr. Zhengmao Li, Vice President of China Unicom; Won Jin Park, Managing Director of Strategic Planning Division at KTF; Frank Meng, President of Qualcomm Greater China; Zeming Yang of China Academy of Telecom Research; Juergen Stark, Corporate Vice President (Mobile Devices) of Motorola and Andy Tian of Strategic Partnership Development at Google, Inc.

So, rest of the day I have to think on what media might be interested in giving me the assignment to go to this event. I have a few lines to Dutch media, but need a bit more. Have to cover my costs too. If you have a good idea, do not hide it for me.
This evening I will attend a private by the Red Herring together with Vincent Lo, Chairman of the Shui On Group, and Alex Viex, CEO and publisher of the Red Herring, who will also open a high-tech section of Xintiandi. More about that possibly this evening.

China Mobile: barrier or enabler?

Mobile browsing the internet was on the agenda of the Shanghai Mobile Monday meeting tonight in a rather packed Kathleen's 5. Obvious still 90 percent of the mobile phone users has never done it, so the digital vanguard was eager to convince this rather easy audience.
Ding Gang from Widsets, Jack Wong, representing OpenWave and Pierre-Andre Divisia who was representing Opera, painted this rosy picture of happy consumers finding everything they wanted on their mobile phone in open networks. More than once the name of China Mobile was mentioned, the world's largest telecom operator, by the audience as a possible barrier to mobile happiness for the consumer. In the past this quasi-monopolist had effectively been squeezing out both service and content providers and is not seen as the most friendly giant in the industry.
Remarkably enough, one of their representatives was present and moderator Bruno Bensaid was able to get him in the discussion. Not that he could actually said that much, but it improved the sense of accountability that is often lacking in China. The representatives of Microsoft were much more silent than this state-owned Moloch and that is telling.
The nice words of the panelists for China Mobile could easily be mistaken for professional politeness for a major force they are dependent on. But also more independent participants said that China Mobile is changing and it might be much more an enabler of internet browsing than a barrier, who wants to push only its own services.

Mobile Monday meets on mobile internet access

The first people are already leaving ahead of the May holiday (yes you hear this correctly, they are early), but Mobile Monday in Shanghai still has its last meeting on April, 23 before the holiday coming Monday. Subject: surfing on your mobile.
Only ten percent of the 450 million mobile phone users in China now uses an internet connection to link up with the world. Representatives of Nokia, Opera and Openwave give their take on Monday. Access is free, but pre-registering required.

Shi Jixing

China Mobile official breaks ranks on 3G policy

In a remarkable interview with the Financial Times, China Mobile vice-Chairman Shi Jixing has slammed the government's dealing with the third generation mobile communication, 3G. Shi is also member of the NPC.
China's government has been delaying the decision making on issuing the 3G-licenses process over the past few years, not only causing desperation among the potential foreign investors, but also among the key Chinese players.

Beijing was missing an opportunity for 3G networks – which allow the use of data-intensive services such as video on mobile handsets – to become a telecoms powerhouse, said Mr Shi, who is also a member of China’s National People’s Congress.
Policy, he said, was deadlocked between the Ministry of Information Industry, the Nat­ional Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), a state assets commission, and the State Council’s “informatisation” office.
“There are unclear responsibilities and low efficiency,” he said. “This means the excellent strategic opportunity presented by 3G is not being grasped in time.”

China has been working hard to get its own Chinese standard TD-SCDMA out in China to give the technology a head start. For government officials like Mr. Shi - he is still more an official than a business man - it is very uncommon to criticize the government publicly.