Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Apr 04, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Apr 04, 2002 |
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Info-Tech
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Telecommunications ITI to make CDMA handsets
Abhrajit Gangopadhyay
BANGALORE, April 3 THE State-owned telecom equipment maker ITI Ltd plans to manufacture Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) handsets in the financial year 2002-03, company sources said. The firm would be looking at producing close to 2 million handsets by 2003 April-end, sources added. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), which offer limited mobility services would be ready customers for such sets, sources said. ``Approximately there are four million mobile phone users in the country and we expect that another two million will opt for CDMA services by the end of next fiscal,'' sources said. It can be recalled that the Minister of State for Telecommunications, Mr Tapan Sikdar, had said that ITI would manufacture wireless local loop (WiLL) handsets for basic operators. Further, discussions were on with Motorola for strategic alliances in ITI's initiatives to manufacture WiLL handsets, he said. In such a backdrop, manufacturing decision on CDMA handsets seemed plausible for ITI, analysts said. However, Qualcomm owns the CDMA technology and ITI was likely to enter into vendor licensing agreements in its bid to manufacture the CDMA handsets, sources said. The new manufacturing initiate is seen as new revenue stream for the public sector unit, as it expects to report ``almost flat'' revenue for the fiscal 2002-03 over its previous year. Analysts predict that global market for WLL could rise in excess of 200 million subscribers over the next five years. With several private players entering basic telephony, the local market for WiLL was also expected to boom, they added. Meanwhile, LG Electronics and ITI were short-listed by MTNL to provide WiLL handsets to its subscribers in Mumbai.
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