Chinese MVNO to launch in UK
China Telecom’s European arm is to launch consumer facing services for the first time outside of China after striking an MVNO deal with UK carrier Everything Everywhere.
China Telecom has introduced its own MVNO into the UK market, becoming the first Chinese operator to launch a service outside China. CTExcelbiz is running on Everything Everywhere’s network and offer a customised service to the UK’s Chinese population.
China Telecom launched its long-awaited UK MVNO this week, under the snappy name of CTExcelbiz. Using Everything Everywhere’s network, it’s aimed at Chinese residents of the UK, as well as students and tourists, and promises to meet the specific communication requirements of the UK’s Chinese population, voicemail services in Chinese, bilingual customer service and free on-network calls. China Telecom is the first Chinese operator to launch an overseas MVNO, and has a potential market of around 500,000 customers of Chinese descent, in addition to the estimated 1 million Chinese tourists who visit each year. The UK is just China Telecom’s first stop in launching MVNO services throughout Western Europe and the rest of the world.
China Telecom’s European arm is to launch consumer facing services for the first time outside of China after striking an MVNO deal with UK carrier Everything Everywhere.
China Telecom has selected Alcatel-Lucent to provide a range of technology solutions for its project to deliver fibre optic broadband services to many unserved or underserved areas of the country.
ZTE’s Blade touch-screen handset has racked up sales in excess of two million, making it one of the best-selling smartphones globally. The device, which was first sold in the UK in 2010 under the brand “San Francisco” by carrier Orange, is sold in 30 regions, with ZTE saying it has “successfully penetrated Japan and Finland, the home markets of major ZTE competitors.” The uptick in sales for the Chinese manufacturer comes on the back of its announcement of projected sales of 80 million devices this year, up from 60 million in 2010.
China Telecom is to buy the CDMA network it currently leases from parent company China Telecommunications. With fourth quarter profits up 42 per cent on the back of a tripling of smartphone users, China’s biggest fixed-line carrier is looking to build on that growth by reducing its 3G costs. Last year, the cost of leasing the CDMA network rose by 59 per cent – more than the depreciation of assets and other related costs – to CNY13.3bn ($2bn).
The Chinese operator’s mobile service revenue reached CNY22.77 billion ($3.35bn), with mobile revenues making up 21 per cent of overall revenue in 1H10. Net profit for the group increased 4.7 per cent to CNY8.81bn and EBITDA for the group increased 5.6 per cent to CNY45.76bn.
Mega vendor Alcatel-Lucent said this week that it has scored infrastructure agreements worth $1.7bn from Chinese carriers China Mobile and China Telecom.
Last week the Informer had Vodafone scotching rumours of a network sharing deal with O2 by announcing an outsourcing deal with Ericsson. This week the firm scotched the scotching of those rumours by unveiling a pan-European infrastructure sharing deal with Telefonica (O2′s owner) covering Germany, Spain, Ireland and the UK, with the Czech Republic likely to follow.
China’s leading fixed line carrier, China Telecom, has revealed that it will pay a total of $16.1bn to acquire the CDMA network of mobile operator China Unicom. The deal is part of the Chinese government’s restructuring plan for the country’s telecoms sector, announced in May. China Telecom will pay Rmb66.2bn to acquire the CDMA network [...]