China's ZTE plans WiMAX trial in Pakistan
Mike Clendenin
EE Times
(09/19/2005 8:55 AM EDT)

TAIPEI, Taiwan — WiMAX will soon be touching down in Pakistan.

China’s ZTE Corp. said Monday (Sept. 19) it would launch a trial run in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, of its beta equipment for the fixed wireless service. The trial will begin next month, through local provider Telecard, and include an installation of one six-sector base transceiver station and 17 receivers.

Telecard will target telephone service for residents, online services for enterprises, broadband services for hotels and wireless backhaul for Wi-Fi services at Islamabad's airport.

"This is the first trial of its kind for ZTE in Pakistan where DSL coverage is extremely limited," said James Jiang, of ZTE's American R&D center. "The success of this trial will be of great significance for WiMAX expansion overseas, in particular in South Asia, Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific markets." Along with Huawei Technologies, ZTE is one of China’s largest telecom equipment makers, posting sales of $4.1 billion last year. It has three WiMAX R&D centers in China and the U.S. with more than 400 R&D personnel dedicated to WiMAX operations.

The company said it hopes to carve out a niche in offering services and hardware in Asia for the relatively new technology.
- posted @ Saturday, October 01, 2005