Some of you may remember that Morse was officially abandonned in 1997, when the French navy ceased using the code with a final message ”Calling all. This is our last cry before our eternal silence.”

Well, it looks like Morse has not gone completely forgotten by everyone, and especially not netizens in China who are using it, among other, to escape the vigilance of the cyber-police!

Here is the link for those interested in translating from Chinese to morse or vice-versa.

Ever wanted to learn Chinese? If so, rush to Zon!

To make sure that you get the real feel for China, your avatar first arrives as a tourist in Beijing Airport’s Customs zone (I must have been unlucky since each time I arrived it was a bit more crowded than in the game). You will then move on to the airport’s lobby, to the hotel lobby and finally to the streets! At the different stages, players encounter quests, have access to learning materials — including live Chinese tutors — and are able to organize and participate in social activities. The game even comes with some kind of traditional Chinese music.

The overall goal for the player is to fare well and advance socially and economically, with players moving from “tourists” to “residents” and finally to “citizens” of modern China - note that becoming a Chinese citizen is a rare feat for foreigners and usually a great honour. Let’s hope that the developers enhance the game to include a trip to the Olympic Stadium or to Lhassa…

Beijing is taking another shot at increasing competition in the telecommunication services sector. The new round of restructuring will merge the existing six state-owned companies into three giants who will be able to compete in all segments (mobile, fixed, value-added). Let’s not get too excited though. Lessons from other countries tend to show that it is no easy task to grab market shares from the incumbent. Also, the hoped-for competitive markets tend to turn into duopolies or oligopolies with two dominant players.

The real challenge (and litmus test) for Chinese policy-makers will be to open the fixed and mobile market to both private domestic and foreign investors. In theory, foreign investment is capped at 49% by China’s World Trade Organization commitments; in practice none of the restructured companies will find a significant value in getting an important/strategic investors on board. For sure they will be backed by the government who keeps seeing the telecom sector as both a sovereignty and security issue.

At the end of the day, it is the Chinese consumer and the Chinese economy which might suffer from the government’s unwillingness to open even more to competition.

The Alliance for Universal Power Supplies (AUPS) - an industry standards group that seeks to enable universally compatible and eco-friendly products and services - is counting on China to lead the way towards a universal phone charger.

Because every new CE device comes with a charger, some 3.2 billion power supplies will be designed and shipped in 2008 alone.

China is the first country to pass a law requiring a USB interface for cell phone chargers: all cell phones designed after June 14 2008 must use a USB charger to be sold legally in China. With a production above 500 millions mobile phones for 2007 alone, China’s standardization effort (enlightned self-interest, at last) is poised to have some impact beyond its borders. Let’s also hope that someone, in a not-too-distant future, tackles the standardization of the charger’s other half …the plug!

According to Akamai, China and the USA lead the worlds as the the two biggest sources of Internet traffic attack (with respectively 17% and 14% of overall DDoS and hacking attempts). This is not too surprising since both countries have the largest number of Internet users - more interesting though is Taiwan’s 3rd place. The statistics seem to be confirmed by a recent study which found that more than half of the hacker attacks on computer systems of South Korea’s government and public agencies came from China. Similarly Indian officials claimed that the Chinese were constantly scanning and
mapping India’s official networks.

Some [conspiracy theorists] went as far as arguing that China’s attacks may be responsible for two major power blackouts in Florida and the Northeast. While there has never been any official government accusation of China involvement in the outages, its role is not explicitly ruled out.

According to US cyber-experts ”what makes the Chinese stand out is the pervasive and relentless nature of the attacks”. China’s military history is one of asymetric warfare. Waging cyber-warfare is simply adapting to current practices as, for sure, they are not alone playing that game.

Guangzhou is one the latest municipality announcing the deployment of more than 1,000 wireless broadband access points around the city - the number is expected to hit 2,500 by the end of 2008. By 2010 the wireless coverage should be extended to all urban areas and part of the rural areas of Guangzhou with 10,000 hot spots!

Besides Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Nanjing are also building up their city-wide wireless broadband networks - 25 large and medium-sized cities have signed up for similar development plans. They all tend to follow a 3-phases approach: inner city, outer city and rural areas so as to eventually cover an entire municipal area. Depending on the operators, hotspots are located in hospitals, government office areas, street lights or traffic lights and use Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Mesh and Wi-MAX technologies

Even if the companies do not need a license when building the Wi-Fi networks, the government agencies are never far away: content is regulated by the Ministry of Culture while access is regulated by the Ministry of Information Industry. The municipalities are also reaching profit-sharing agreement with the network builders for value-added services: some of the early experiments included webpage browsing, video surveillance, video on demand and voice communication while Baidu, China’s largest search engine, is developing a wireless search services.

A supporter of China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, has set up a page on Facebook. His page already has close to 25,000 fans (as of May 29, 6PM GMT) underlining his growing popularity in the aftermath of the earthquake - Mr. Wen drew much praise when he flew to Sichuan in the hours after the earthquake and traveled around to hard-hit towns to express sympathy with victims. It is unclear who the supporter is and whether he or she has ties to the government since there has been no official comment by the government in the official media.

Want to be Wen’s pal and help him catch up with Obama’s 800′000+ supporters, go to Facebook…

Count:
- 45′000 as of June 3
- 50′000 as of June 13
- 55′000 as of July 30

Once again, China Mobile added more than 7 million subscribers in April. Even if this represents a “small” decrease compared to February and March (the decline is officially caused byseasonal weakness), the company is well on track to reach its target of adding 80 millions users by the end of the year. Its rival, China Unicom gained “only” 1.5 million mobile phone users in April, down from 1.62 million a month earlier. This leaves us with 400 million mobile users for China Mobile and 168 million for China Mobile.

Who are these new consumers? Mainly low-end users (in rural areas) which is leading to a decrease in the average revenue per minute of usage. Average revenue per user (ARPU) is logically falling: it fell by 10% since last December to under USD 10 per month. Though worrying, China Mobile maintained an EBITDA margins above 50% in 2007.

At the same time the fixed operators keep losing customers. China Telecom fixed-line subscribers fall by around 1 million per month (half a million for China Netcom). Both companies are compensating with gains in broadband users (around 500′000 per month).

The State Council (China’s top executive agency) launched an online mouring campaign: as part of three day mourning period related to the Sichuan earthquake, ALL websites were ordered to take down entertainment and game sections and to redirect to ones dedicated to commemorating earthquake victims. Some of the largest portals (Sina, Netease) immediately followed, re-directing frontpage entertainement.

In a sense, this reflects what is happening in other broadcasting media. For instance all TV stations suspended normal programming and only broadcast CCTV programs. Public entertainment will not be allowed either for the next 3 days.

The dramatic earthquake in Sichuan has revealed the incredible resilience of Chinese telecommunication operators. China’s telecom industry as a whole had dispatched 15,000 staff, 520 satellite phones and 650 sets of emergency telecommunication equipment. While China Telecom was working hard on restoring its fiber optics network, China Unicom launched satellite communication services in the region. China Mobile set up three temporary mobile communication base stations at the rescue command center. China Mobile’s Sichuan branch also opened sites in areas with dense populations in Sichuan Province so that people affected by the earthquake can keep in touch with their families and friends around the nation. By May 14, it had set up more than 2100 such sites to provide free telephone service, free mobile phone battery charging and free drinking water.

Analysts estimate that operators might have to spend as much as USD 200 million to reconstruct or replace up to 2,600 base stations which may have been destroyed or badly damaged by the earthquake. The use of alternative communication technologies  also highlighted the importance of redundancy. Xiaolingtong phones (aka “little smart”) are being extensively used in place of the mobile phones. China Satellite Communications Corporation is importing 1,000 satellite phones amid efforts to support the disaster areas in addition to the 350 satellite phones alrady dispatched to rescue personnel.

P.S.: The crisis has also prompted most players in the sector to donate either equipment or cash.