Asia, or at least a large part of it is going through a telecom boom. Yesterday, Dave Burstein reported in DSL Prime that “China will soon pass the U.S. as the country with the most broadband users, probably mid-2007 at 55M-60M.” And that’s with 12% market penetration. Taiwan’s capital, Tapei went fully wireless yesterday.
On the backhaul side of the business, two Indian state-owned telecommunication companies, BSNL and MTNL have set up a joint venture called Millennium Telecom, a $400 million project to build a “submarine cable system connecting India to Singapore and Malaysia, and to West Asia, the US and Europe.” The news comes close on the heels of the launch of Falcon, a 2.56TB submarine cable system that connects Mumbai with other countries in the Middle East and is part of the FLAG global network.
These seemingly unrelated news bits are part of a larger theme: an ongoing telecom buildout in Asia where broadband and other modern telecom technologies are being deployed as demand explodes.
2 comments so far
2:37 PM PT
Now if only Verizon can take inspiration from this story and lay the Fiber to bring FISO to Hoboken, NJ…
BTW: Not sure if you noticed or wrote about this - India has held the distinction of being the country with the cheapest cell phone call charges.
There is an oblique reference to the same in this article: (link)
11:07 PM PT
I think that’s one of the reasons why the Asian economies are doing so well, as they are able to more readily upgrade their technologies than many of their US/European counterparts. After all, making dramatic changes to existing infrastructures is much harder for “developed” countries than simply putting in the “newest” technologies for developing countries…
I hope that made sense…it is a little late right now…
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