Canada-based Northern Telecom (Nortel) is one of the international equipment sellers that has benefited from the mainland's conversion to GSM cellular technology, allowing the firm access to a market previously dominated by only two overseas companies.
In March 1994, Nortel provided Guangdong telecommunications authorities with their first system to test GSM technology. Its first proper sale of GSM equipment came more than a year later, when the provincial telecommunications authority (PTA) in Hebei province signed a contract.
Since then, the company has sold GSM systems to PTAs in Shaanxi province and Tianjin municipality. Nortel also has sold equipment to China Unicom branches in Shandong, Heilongjiang and Zhejiang provinces.
As well, it has supplied the People's Liberation Army's commercial engineering offshoot, China Electronic System Engineering, which developed analogue systems with Hong Kong company Star Digitel, a company controlled by Star Telecom International.
Nortel (China) chief executive Robert Mao said in US dollar terms, wireless communications sales were the largest part of the firm's mainland business and increasing in importance. 'We are certainly growing,' he said.
Such progress has been made possible by the mainland's recent widespread move away from older TACS based systems and adoption of GSM technology. That has allowed the company to emerge as a player in a market once dominated by rivals Motorola and Ericsson.
