Demand for wireless up in region

Demand for wireless up in region

SINGAPORE (DPA): The Asia-Pacific region will account for up to 70 percent demand for the global wireless communication market by the year 2006, Jonathan Tarlin, vice-president of the American MTA-EMCI international wireless network, said yesterday.

Tarlin said wireless local loop, cellular phones and paging services in the region will see growth in excess of 25 percent annually. He expects overall paging to expand by 15-20 per cent per year, with India and Taiwan the fastest growing markets.

MTA-EMCI is a Washington-based telecommunications consultancy firm that counts among its clients giants like AT&T, British Telecom and Motorola.

Tarlin told reporters the cellular subscriber demand would increase at a rate of 25-30 percent a year, "and the countries that will add the most number of subscribers are China, Japan, South Korea and India.

"In terms of absolute numbers, China will be the top because of its size," he said.

MTA-EMCI forecasts that cellular subscribers in China will jump five-fold to 26 million in the year 2001, from the current 5.1 million. Paging subscribers will more than double to 73 million from 33 million now.

"Another area which will see very high growth is wireless local loop - a fixed telephone service that uses radio signals instead of underground cables. That's because it's from a very low base. But it will be over a long term and will need three years to take off," said Tarlin.

Tarlin also expects "mobile satellite, trunk radio, mobile data services to pick up steam in this region, but they will be niche players.

"Despite the explosive growth in the wireless market, there will be tremendous deployment of fixed lines telephones in Asia in the coming years," Tarlin added.