Last week two Chinese nationals were arrested while the authorities busted a bypass den at Islamabad. They have been allegedly the partner of an “influential Pakistani” in this illegal venture. It claims to have caused an estimated six billion rupees (US$74 million) loss to the exchequer. The news followed by a lively debate is going on.

Meanwhile, the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan (ISPAK) has rejected a regulatory decree to deploy necessary countermeasures to block the VoIP traffic. Their argument and a loud debate can be viewed here

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said China’s biggest mobile operator, China Mobile, was awarded a license for TD-SCDMA, the domestically-developed 3G standard.

The other two main carriers, China Telecom and China Unicom, received licenses for the US-developed CDMA2000 and Europe’s WCDMA, respectively.

The 3G high-speed networks can handle faster data downloads, allowing handset users to make video calls and watch TV programs.

Read the full story in China Daily here.

The government-controlled former monopoly, which still owns about 70 per cent of China’s fixed telephone lines, has struggled to cope with a rapidly evolving market and competition from mobile phone operators.

“Due to intensifying mobile substitution, China Telecom experienced negative growth in access lines in service for the first time [in 2007], and voice business revenue decreased by 7.9 per cent from 2006,” the company said in a statement.

Charice Wang, an analyst at research firm Ovum, explained that China Telecom has been facing strong competition from China Mobile as customers switch to mobile services under increasing fixed-mobile substitution.

“China Telecom’s traditional voice business has been [declining in] recent years,” she said.

Read the full report here.

Hosted by the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planner, the hearing discussed two proposed plans for roaming charges, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Both proposals involve cancelling the existing roaming service fee of 0.2 yuan per minute, which users have criticized as being too high, according to local media reports.

China’s mobile operators, China Mobile and China Unicom collect domestic roaming fees if the subscriber leaves the local service area. Analysts have mixed views on whether a cut in roaming charges would affect earnings growth for the two operators.

Read the full story in Reuters here.

It’s worth remembering developing countries have never been happy hunting grounds for Apple’s high-end devices. The iPhone is a low-volume, high-margin device demanding a fat airtime commission. In other words, not for developing Asia. So far Apple has shown no interest in developing Singapore or Hong Kong.  Until it does, the iPhone’s sole Asian channels will be eBay or the grey market.

“Growth features such as rising consumption, elasticity of demand and economies of scale will continue to be the main themes for the growth markets, including China, India and Indonesia, which are still under-appreciated by investors, in our view,” UBS said in a report.

India and China, the world’s fastest-growing mobile markets, added around 8 million mobile phone subscribers in October, taking their user base to approximately 217 million and 531 million, respectively.

Read the full story in Forbes.com

The LTE / SAE (Long Term Evolution/System Architecture Evolution) Trial Initiative (LSTI) launched in May this year has reported the successful delivery of the first in a series of test results aimed at proving the potential and benefits of LTE, which is being standardized by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) as a next generation mobile broadband technology.

The Initiative was founded by leading telecommunications companies Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, France Telecom/Orange, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel, T-Mobile and Vodafone, and was recently expanded with China Mobile, Huawei, LG Electronics, NTT DoCoMo, Samsung, Signalion, Telecom Italia and ZTE joining as new members.

As mobile devices become increasingly sophisticated and handle more and more complex multimedia applications, the LTE/SAE technology is designed to give end users wireless access to growing levels of data throughput on the move.3GPP LTE is specified to enable downlink/uplink peak data rates above 100/50 Mbps in initial deployment configurations.

Read the full story in http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/Nov2007/5407.htm