Vendor Studies

Dominican Republic is a country experiencing rapid growth. In 2007, the country of almost 9.8 million citizens had a GDP per capita of 9.2USD, a relative high value in the region. The Dominican Republic has enjoyed an average growth of 10% during the past 2 years. Nonetheless, the country has its development challenges. If 6 million mobile phone subscriptions have been registered so far, the Dominican Republic counts less than 1 million fixed phone lines and only 280,000 Internet subscribers today. In a context where enterprises and the general population want to get access to both broadband services and basic telephony, there is a strategic place for a WiMAX player in the market.

When Altitude started life as a telecom consultancy based in Normandy, one of the recurring questions it could never answer was why the bandwidth requirements of the local business community 0 including itself - were not being met by the incumbent operator. Following the deregulation of the telecommunications market in France in 1996, Altitude decided to diversify and become an operator itself to exploit the lucrative opportunities it had identified. Its research showed that BWA would be the fastest, most cost-effective way of rolling out a regional broadband network. The company was granted a license to operate in the 26GHz spectrum and soon built BWA NEtworks in three of Frances 95 departements (counties) including Normandy.

The Taiwanese government sought a solution to create a barrier-less online environment that would improve the country’s ranking of mobile Internet penetration and position it as one of the top countries worldwide with the most cost effective access fees. Targeted at expanding the communications and service industries in Taiwan, the government also sought to aggregate the efforts of cell phone manufacturers, content providers and telecom companies to develop a broadband and wireless infrastructure, which would reduce the digital divide by increasing coverage in urban and rural areas.

On the sunny Caribbean islands of Curacao and St. Maarten, Mobile WiMAX service, like the sun, streams from cloudless skies. WiMAX service provider Scarlet provides international calling services and high-speed Internet services to corporate and residential customers. Scarlet’s international concession covering the entire Netherlands Antilles dates back to 1886 when telegraph was first introduced to the islands. Today, Scarlet operates state-of-the art wireless broadband networks in Curacao and St. Maarten using its international fiber optic network to provide quality data and voice (VoIP) services. Scarlet’s international calling service offerings provide a variety of choices to suit almost any customer requirement, including a full suite of prepaid and postpaid service packages.

Philippine operator Globe Telecom selects Huawei to build its WiMAX network to
deliver wireless broadband service.

MTN, the largest GSM operator in MEA, selects Huawei to deploy WiMAX network in Cote d’Ivoire.

Méditel, owned by Telefonica and Portugal Telecom, selects Huawei WiMAX to enter wireless broadband era in Morocco.

Libya Telecom & Technology (LTT) is a subsidiary of GPTC. It specializes in providing data services such as Internet. It was only providing dial-up Internet access, VSAT, DSL, WiFi and E-mail services in the past. In August 2007, LTT was determined to develop wireless broadband service and carry out tender and bid activities in the WiMAX field. After careful survey, LTT selected ZTE as its strategic partner to build the first WiMAX network in Africa.

As one of the most developed countries in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has advanced economy and good development of mobile telecom networks. Though it has advanced telecommunication business, its data service is relatively poor. The data service penetration in 2007 did not reach 5% of the country’s population. In 2007, Atheeb made a joint bid with Batelco to obtain a fixed telecom license from the Communications and Information Technology
Commission (CITC). After achieving this license, Atheeb got a nationwide 3.5 GHz spectrum and was allowed to offer fixed-line services in the Kingdom. In the same year, Atheeb made preparations for network construction, aiming to enter the data service and fixed-line voice service market in the shortest time and attain the commanding height of the fixed-line market in Saudi Arabia.