Bill Gates is giving away everything. He's got medicine, so I'll do communications.

fiber to every home in Latin America inspired by Xavier

Nitel open auction

China: Internet freedom. Bring down the cost. Sharing software. Illegal, but right.

Robert Atkinson, Sam Simon, a few people never heard of. Crandall saved by someone at Brookings. Code of ethics

Slim puts assets in public trust

Bill Gates is giving away everything. He's got medicine, so I'll do communications.

fiber to every home in Latin America inspired by Xavier

Victory, others thrown out of state

Bruce Kushnick to advisory board.

Hilary: Kill ACTA because it cripples Open Internet Initiative

Atkinson (ITIF) pleads guilty to tax charges, refuses to hand over donor names

Robert Atkinson's ITIF is claims non-profit tax status which prohibits most lobbying, but brought a targeted

“I pled guilty to protect my funding sources, whose confidentiality I have promised to conceal. Dashiell Hammett went to jail rather than reveal the donors to a political organization and I was ready to do the same.

The other Robert Atkinson in telecom policy, who works at Columbia University, spent the day explaining to worried friends that he wasn't the one in trouble. “For a decade I've been blamed for things said by a fellow who unfortunately has the same name I do. Can't he get an honest job in a field he knows something about?”

Comcast sheds NBC network, drops all suits against the FCC

“I didn't want to let go of the peacock,” Brian Roberts lamented, “but the big profits at NBCU come from the cable networks. The antitrust problems of owning a network and stations in bitter

Hillary – remove WRF lobbyists

Imspector General back

Post whistle blower everywhere

USAC false claims

US MPEV4 AVC

Sharing rural spectrum

Cui Bono squad

NECA Foia, no pay higher than FCC Chairman

Repeal Mickey Mouse

Building with antennas and dishes

Opt out of up to 10 channels

Policy: Don't ask any favors if you sue us

Eliminate DC Circuit

OPP, OET review commissioners comments to catch errors.

U.S. price per bit for smartgrid

tax recover free spectrum

Eastern Europe – DT as good to us as Germany

Orascom $5M for Algerian youth football

Bill Gates – new languages for Google translate

Iran: publicize Alcatel for breaking the boycott

Nitel open bidding for cabinet and politician payoff

Telstra: We are a cable company

Cinnected nation pulls paper to save Gates funding.

Georgetown 12 silver tongues

Italy: following China's lead with networks dominating IPTV

Truth in billing = 60 extra days for cancel

Quote Orson Swindle and Ruth Milkman

All automatic renewals 90 days at old rate.

ITU open - sue Bell CTOs

engineers are amateurs and didn't know how to cover their tracks.

*** Marthatown University

.h1 { FONT-WEIGHT: bold; TEXT-JUSTIFY: inter-ideograph; FONT-SIZE: 22pt; MARGIN: 17pt 0cm 16.5pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 240%; TEXT-ALIGN: justify } .h2 { FONT-WEIGHT: bold; TEXT-JUSTIFY: inter-ideograph; FONT-SIZE: 16pt; MARGIN: 13pt 0cm; LINE-HEIGHT: 173%; TEXT-ALIGN: justify } .h3 { FONT-WEIGHT: bold; TEXT-JUSTIFY: inter-ideograph; FONT-SIZE: 16pt; MARGIN: 13pt 0cm; LINE-HEIGHT: 173%; TEXT-ALIGN: justify } DIV.union { FONT-SIZE: 14px; LINE-HEIGHT: 18px } DIV.union TD { FONT-SIZE: 14px; LINE-HEIGHT: 18px } Wang Jianzhou, chairman and chief executive officer of China Mobile speaks at the company's 2009 annual results conference in Hong Kong on Thursday. EDMOND TANG / CHINA DAILY China Mobile, the world's largest mobile operator, said on Thursday that it plans to reduce capital spending over the next three years as network expansion for third-generation (3G) services nears a close. The company will reduce capital spending from 123 billion yuan this year to 80.4 billion yuan in 2012, it said in its quarterly report. China Mobile will also roll out 80 new 3G handsets that support its TD-SCDMA network later this year. 'The convergence across telecommunications, Internet, radio and TV broadcasting networks will form a new market beyond the traditional telecommunications industry," Chairman Wang Jianzhou said in a statement on Thursday. He said the company faces "fresh challenges" from the global slowdown and the growing saturation of the market. China Mobile and its two smaller rivals, China Unicom and China Telecom, spent $21 billion on building 3G mobile networks last year, following the much-delayed awarding of 3G licenses last year. With the country aggressively pushing for 3G services last year, China Mobile saw more revenue coming from value-added services. Its average monthly revenue per user in 2009 rose to 77 yuan for the full year from 75 yuan in the first nine months. That in turn, boosted the company's full year revenue to 452 billion yuan, up 9.8 percent over 2008. China Mobile said on Thursday that the contribution of value-added services to revenues rose in 2009, including more than 10 billion yuan from a new mobile music service. The company said last week that it will pay 39.8 billion yuan ($5.8 billion) for a 20 percent stake in medium-sized Chinese lender Shanghai Pudong Development Bank as part of its plan to develop mobile banking and other services. "It is obvious that China Mobile needs to diversify itself to face the strong challenge from rivals China Unicom and China Telecom," said Pang Jun, an analyst from research firm GKF China. He said increasing revenue from new businesses such as mobile payment and wireless Internet will compensate for its declining revenue from traditional voice services. According to company figures, China Mobile's market share in the new user market fell to 47.63 percent in November from 78.2 percent in January 2009, although the company still far outpaces its two rivals in total user numbers, accounting for about 60 percent. The company's net profit for 2009 rose 2.3 percent to 115 billion yuan from 112.63 billion yuan a year earlier. Chief Financial Officer Xue Taohai said earlier that more than half of China Mobile's new subscribers are in rural areas, where average customer spending is lower. He said that might lower the company's profit margins. Wang also said on Thursday that the company is still in talks with Apple Inc to offer iPhone, adding he wants to sell the handset "as soon as possible". The carrier rose 1.92 percent to HK$76.4 on Thursday. The stock has advanced 2.6 percent this year, compared with a 9 percent increase for China Telecom and a 7.7 percent decline for Unicom.

China Mobile Mulls Investments in Asia, Africa to Fuel Growth

By LORRAINE LUK

HONG KONG--China Mobile Ltd., the world's biggest mobile operator by subscribers, is looking at acquisition and investment targets in Asia and Africa as profit growth slows at home, its chairman said Friday.

But any expansion through acquisitions would be balanced with continued investments in its home market because there is still huge growth potential in mainland China, Chairman and Chief Executive Wang Jianzhou said in an interview Friday.

China is home to more than 730 million mobile subscribers, with the country's mobile penetration rate at close to 60%. That is still pretty low compared with developed markets like Japan and South Korea where penetration rates are around 100%.

Asia's Week Ahead: Japan CPI

1:28

World bankers will be on inflation watch when Japan reports its consumer price index for February. Policy minutes from the Bank of Japan will also be released next week. On the corporate front, results are due from China Telecom and China Unicom. MarketWatch's Andria Cheng reports in New York.

China Mobile is the biggest player, but its profit growth has been slowing because of rising competition after a government mandated restructuring in late 2008 merged China's six telecom operators into three nationwide full-service operators, bringing in China Telecom Corp. into the mobile market. The mobile giant reported Thursday its net profit last year rose just 2.3% to 115.20 billion yuan (US$16.88 billion) from 112.63 billion yuan a year earlier, sharply lower than the 30% growth it saw in 2008.

"Rising competition has already hurt our profitability. The company wants to look for additional growth and opportunities overseas," Mr. Wang said.

His comments suggest China Mobile is taking a more aggressive acquisition approach after the industry restructuring as it seeks to generate further growth. Its only acquisition was in 2006 when it completed the 3.38 billion Hong Kong dollar ($435.5 million) purchase of Hong Kong mobile carrier China Resources Peoples Telephone Co.

China Mobile this month agreed to take a 20% stake in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co. for US$5.83 billion as it seeks to expand into mobile payment services. Last year, China Mobile also agreed to invest 17.7 billion New Taiwan dollars (US$557.2 million) in Taiwan's Far EasTone Communications Co. but the plan remains in limbo as the island keeps its phone-services providers off-limits to Chinese investment.

"We are still awaiting approval from the Taiwan government," said Mr. Wang. "We hope the Taiwan government will relax investment rules."

The executive cautioned that despite its hefty cash reserve--last year, the company had US$34 billion in cash--it won't chase "high-priced assets" and that is why it hasn't bid for the African assets of Kuwait's Mobile Telecommunications Co. or for a stake in Nigerian Telecommunications Ltd.

The Nigerian government is auctioning a stake in the telecom operator and China Mobile's rival, China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd., has said it would explore the possibility of an equity investment.

"We haven't participated in recent bids for African assets," said the executive, declining to elaborate further.

Analysts say overseas acquisitions would be the only way for China Mobile to boost its earnings growth in the near term as it takes time to generate revenue from value-added and data services.

Goldman Sachs recently raised its price target on China Mobile to HK$90 from HK$86, partly reflecting the anticipated earnings boost from company's planned investment in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.

Mr. Wang reiterated he expects the deal to boost the company's earnings per share by 2% once completed. The executive also said he sees "great potential" in mobile payment services because China Mobile has more than 500 million subscribers. He said the company is targeting 20% of its subscribers to use mobile payment services, which will generate "substantial" additional income.

Mr. Wang said the company is also looking at investment opportunities in the mobile Internet space.

"We are confident in maintaining [revenue] growth in the coming years" he said, noting that he expects to see investments in value-added services such as music, instant messaging and mobile readers pay off.

Mr. Wang said China Mobile is still in talks with Apple Inc. to offer iPhones, but bringing China's homegrown 3G technology to the iPhone remains an issue to ironed out in the talks.

As the dominant wireless operator, with about a 70% market share, China Mobile is required to operate on the locally developed 3G mobile technology--Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access or TD-SCDMA. TD-SCDMA is less mature than rival 3G standards, Wideband-CDMA and CDMA 2000, which are widely used around the world.

Write to Lorraine Luk at lorraine.luk@dowjones.com

Randall Stevenson, Ivan Seidenberg, and Brian Roberts should be on their knees kissing Julius' ring because the primary goal of the national broadband plan is to get them more spectrum and customers. Turning off broadcast and forcing everyone to watch their TV via the carriers will bring them tens of millions of customers. If Blair described USF/ICC correctly last week, there's a direct $5B+ for the big carriers with many long distance customers. The FCC is proposing limits on retransmission that should be worth additional $billions/year.