China Mobile May Double WLAN Deployment
Communications Weekly, 8/07/09
Following China Mobile's (NYSE: CHL; 0941.HK) recent announcement of bidding results for its 2009 procurement of 108,000 WLAN access points (APs), the group is now undergoing preparations to allocate equipment vendors across its provincial subsidiaries according to each bidder's share, but the provincial operators will retain a say in their pick of the vendors, and may subsequently choose to expand the scale of WLAN deployment in their province by more than 10%. According to an inside source from China Mobile, "The actual scale of deployment will definitely surpass that which was determined in the bidding, therefore there will still be minor adjustments to each vendor's procurement share." An industry source estimated, "Actual deployment numbers may double, for up to approximately 200,000 APs." China Mobile has required vendors to complete bid orders within 8 weeks, and expects to finish network deployment in 8 weeks, with the entire network completed before November.
Editor's Note: For more background on the results of China Mobile's WLAN bidding results, please see "China Mobile Reveals WLAN Bidding Results", MD 7/30/09 issue.
Keywords: China Mobile procurement wireless WLAN bidding CHL 0941.HK wireless networking
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