Sybase Wins One of China's Largest Telecom Billing Contracts

Sybase Inc. announced that it will provide the database management software to support the billing system for one of the largest telecommunications providers in China, China Unicom's CDMA (Call Division Multiple Access). The award of this contract strengthens Sybase's leadership position and increases its market share in the telecom industry. This win also advances Sybase's goal of increasing its investment in China, and provides more services to its Chinese customers.

By the first half of 2001, China Unicom serviced over 20 million GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) mobile phone subscribers and has the only license from China's government to provide next generation CDMA service, which is expected to grow very fast. As the only telecom carrier to receive the CDMA license from China's government, China Unicom is also an important service provider of long distance calling, Internet and IP services, telecom value-added service and other related services. In February, China Unicom announced that it would construct one of the world's largest and most advanced CDMA networks. This project will be completed by the fall of 2001 and implemented by six major system integrators - AsiaInfo Technology, Neusoft, Nanjing Linkage System, Fujian Wholewise, Shenzhen Modern and Beijing Yiping. This system is expected to start its pilot operation in mid-October. China Unicom is expecting to have over 50 million CDMA subscribers in three years.

Upon completion of this project, China Unicom will possess both GSM and CDMA mobile communication networks, providing the flexibility to switch to the Third Generation (3G) mobile services. It is anticipated that once the first phase is completed it will increase the subscriber capacity by 10 million a year. China Unicom needed a highly efficient solution for its billing system and chose Sybase's best-in-class database management system. Sybase Adaptive Server® Enterprise will be used in the 33 locations covering 31 provinces/municipalities throughout the country and the China Unicom headquarters.

Sybase's flagship database product - ASE - played a significant role in winning this deal. Many projects in China in 2001 are already running on ASE, such as Shandong Telecom's billing system, Zhejiang telecom's network management system, Heilongjiang telecom's network management system, Shaanxi Mobile's billing accounting, Sichuan mobile GPRS billing system and China Unicom's VOIP system in 123 cities.

ASE supports the traditional mission-critical applications, as well as Internet applications. It manages all of the information requirements of the customer's applications, providing database reliability, integration and high performance. The multi-engine structure of ASE with internal parallel mechanisms and effective query optimization technology gives it outstanding performance and scalability. It also provides leading enterprise-level integration, powerful data access and mobile data technology. ASE supports distributed operations and queries that cross over remote Sybase and non-Sybase databases. These functions can be fully integrated with China's Unicom's CDMA system for accomplishing remote data transfer and synchronization, rapid data analysis, summarization as well as application integration. ASE helps China Unicom to complete seamless business integration and transition of system operations, while providing powerful support for future growth.

"We are very excited to have the opportunity to work hand-in-hand with China Unicom, which demonstrates our strength and determination to participate in national telecommunications projects. This marks a milestone in Sybase's development in China," said Mr. Danny Fung, managing director of Sybase Software (China) Company Limited. "Winning this project is a strategic move for Sybase in continuing to be the provider of world-class technology and services, and will solidify our partnerships with other system integrators."