3 Macau targets mid-Dec 4G launch
Hutchison (3 Macau) plans to launch 4G service by the middle of the month and said its network built by ZTE will cover 90 per cent of the outdoor areas of the territory.

It has invested MOP600 million ($36.6 million) to roll out the network.

The operator, along with CTM, China Telecom Macau and SmarTone, received their 4G licences in March.

China Telecom Macau introduced 4G service last week and claimed to have 95 per cent population coverage of the city. Market leader CTM launched 4G service in October and SmarTone launched last month.

The operators are required to have citywide coverage by the end of 2016.

Zong to invest $1B in 3G/4G networks
Pakistan’s third largest operator Zong, which is backed by China Mobile, announced plans to invest $1 billion over the next two years to expand its 3G and 4G networks.

The operator, with a 19 per cent market share, had 23.5 million connections at the end of September, with 2G users representing 83 per cent of the total, according to GSMA Intelligence. It has 4.5 million 3G connections and about 200,000 4G customers, after launching LTE a year ago.

Zong deputy CEO Niaz Malik said investments in the industry would increase if the government removed the high taxes on internet services, the Daily Times reported. In June the government in Punjab introduced a 19.5 per cent sales tax on internet usage.

Docomo, Huawei demo LAA/Wi-Fi co-existence
Japanese operator NTT Docomo and Chinese vendor Huawei demonstrated that Licensed-Assisted Access (LAA) and Wi-Fi can work together in a dense small-cell environment.

The demo at Docomo’s R&D centre in Yokohama used a multi-access point/multi-user small-cell network to model an actual field test, with an unlicensed carrier operating in an air-interface rather than a cable connection.

The companies said the results confirmed the capability of Huawei’s co-existence technology called adaptive Listen-Before-Talk (LBT). With its flexible resource reuse for time and power, the technology can boost LAA performance by up to 50 per cent over baseline co-existence solutions, while still providing fair co-existence to neighbouring Wi-Fi systems, Huawei said.

Pegatron to expand output in China
Taiwan’s Pegatron, a major iPhone assembler, plans to sharply expand the production capacity of its plant in Kunshan, China, over the next two years to meet rising demand.

Pegatron chairman Tung Tzu-hsien said it aims to double the number of workers next year and quadruple the number the following year, but didn’t state how much capacity would increase or how much it was investing in the expansion, DigiTimes reported.

Tung said it has seen a significant increase in iPhone orders, both new and old models, from a year ago,