tec.News - Harting

the companies with branches in
their province. Nevertheless, in
certain segments of the market
such as the base stations for
cellular networks virtually all important
parts are still imported.
MARKET VOLUME
It is expected that the turnover
on the Chinese telecommunications
market will be 28 billion US
dollars by the year 2000. The
gross income from telecommunication
services is estimated at 26
billion US dollars. Communication
equipment exports account for
about 3.2 billion US dollars. Since
foreign joint ventures and companies
wholly owned abroad have to
meet the export quotas agreed in
the company's operating permit,
the exportation of equipment will
increase further in the future.
RESEARCH
AND DEVELOPMENT
Telecommunications is not only a
matter of technology. In China, as
in all other countries of the world,
it is also of immense political importance.
China looks on the telecommunications
industry as the
driving force of its economy and in
particular as the opportunity for
transferring know-how to improve
the technological development situation.
The central government is exerting
tight control over the MII
with respect to the direction this
development takes. The objective
is to be in future primarily a supplier
of systems and know-how for
the international telecommunications
market instead of a customer.
The Chinese government has transferred
responsibility for setting
up the necessary research and development
institutes to the MII
in order to achieve this objective.
Ten national universities are now
concentrating on research projects
in the telecommunications
field.
(Fig. Siemens)
The most well-known of these are
the Beijing University for Post and
Telecommunications, the Chengdu
University of Electronic Science
and Technology and the Jiao-Tong
University in Shanghai. The MII
also has its own research centres,
such as the Chinese Academy for
Post and Telecommunications in
Beijing with 14 affiliated research
centres and the Research Institute
for Post and Telecommunications
in Wuhan.
TECHNOLOGIES
OF THE FUTURE
One of the future projects of the
Chinese telecommunications market
is the installation of a mobile
telephone system based on CDMA
technology. It is to be operated by
UNICOM in competition with the
existing GSM system that China
Telecom administers as a virtual
monopoly. For its part, China Telecom
has entered into a contract
with GLOBALSTAR to participate in
the latter's future satellite telephone
system, by means of which
48 systems in near-earth orbit are
to cover the entire world.
In-depth examination of the Chinese
telecommunications market
shows that the intentions and objectives
of the MII are following
world-wide trends: data highway,
Internet, e-mail, electronic commerce,
video access services and
image telephony are also on the
wish list there. Since market saturation
point for speech telephone
systems will not be reached before
the end of the next five years, and
not all technical prerequisites
have been met for the other technologies,
the Chinese communications
market offers outstanding
opportunities for equipment manufacturers
and service providers.
A MARKET
FOR CONNECTORS
A considerable proportion of the
costs of a telecommunications
system is accounted for by con-
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People Power Partnership