EMOBILE: the mobile broadband revolutionist - Huawei

Few people are familiar with China Mobile’s
difficult past. Without implementing
an All-IP strategy earlier than its rivals,
the Chinese giant might be away from
its rightful position as one of the globe’s leading
operators.
As China’s leading telecom services provider,
China Mobile boasts the world’s largest mobile
subscriber base. Serviced by a unified, all-digital
mobile network, its subscribers topped 450 million
on November 30, 2008, while the number of new
monthly subscribers to its services has reached a
staggering 4 million. China Mobile’s GSM and
GPRS global roaming services cover 219 and 138
regions and countries respectively. The creative
addition of value-added services has culminated in
27% of its revenue deriving from non-traditional
services such as CRBT, music downloads, and a
range of Internet-based services.
Time for a bold move
2003, however, marked a year replete with
difficulties for China Mobile. Market competition
was cut-throat, and competitors were aggressively
courting new subscribers with attractive subsidies
and tariff packages. Internally, the company was
saddled with a TDM-based network that was at
80% capacity and betraying signs that customer
demand would soon outpace its capabilities.
While new domestic subscribers had grown from
60 million in 2001 to 62 million in 2003, China
Mobile actually lost its new subscribers during the
same period, suffering a sharp decline from 32
million to 24 million. This was nothing short of a
crisis in a market with a mobile penetration rate of
only 21%.
To reverse the situation, China Mobile decided
to adjust its development strategy in a number of
ways. Firstly, the company decided to reconstruct
its network with future-oriented nascent
technologies to enhance service capabilities and
reduce TCO. Secondly, it sought to transform its
role from a “mobile communications expert” to a
“mobile information expert”.
The legacy TDM network of China Mobile
had been the largest mobile network in the world,
providing services for 150 million subscribers a
decade after its inception. Network expansion,
however, would increase topology complexity,
resulting in declined quality but increased ancillary
costs, including the costs related to transmission,
equipment rooms, power consumption, and
human resources. In a bold move fraught with risk,
China Mobile acted decisively and positioned All-
FEB 2009 / Win-Win
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