Taiwan's Equipment Suppliers Seen to Benefit From China Telecom's Aggressive Expansion Plan

Taipei, March 22, 2011 (CENS)--Taiwan's equipment suppliers are expected to benefit from China Telecom's RMB100 billion (US$15.3 billion at US$1:RMB6.5) expenditure in three years on optic-fiber network and Wi-Fi hot spots throughout mainland China.

Wang Xiaochu, chairman and chief executive of China Telecom, recently said that his company, in conjunction with the mainland's 12th Five-Year Development Plan, will hook an additional 40 million household subscribers up to optic-fiber network throughout the mainland, increasing the total number to over 100 million in 2015. For the Wi-Fi plan, its goal is to add a net one million hot spots, bringing the total number to 1.8 million spots throughout the mainland by the end of this year.

According to Wang, Beijing has written into the five-year plan development of the mainland's optical power line communications (OPLC) as the end-user network of intelligent power management. Industry executives estimated expenditure on the infrastructure at around RMB400 billion (US$61 billion) a year.

Industry executives estimated China Telecom's investments will offer lucrative business to Taiwan's equipment suppliers, including ZyXEL Communications Corp., D-Link Corp., Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., Asustek Computer Inc., Tatung Corp., Pacific Electric Wire & Cable Co., Ltd., and Walsin Lihwa Corp.