Hong Lu Resigns UTStarcom Chair
Written by Dave Burstein   
Hong_LuHong, one of the most thoughtful and gracious in our industry, resigned as chairman of the company he founded, UTStarcom.The company rose to $billions in value on the strength of the PHS "cell-phone-lite" systems for China. Very similar to an extended cordless phone, the Xiaolingtong was extremely inexpensive and easy to deploy. China Telecom and China Netcom, which did not have ordinary mobile licenses, deplyed 100M units. As mobile phone prices came down and the Chinese landline companies received licenses, Xiaolingtong use fell, as have sales at UTStarcom and the stock price. There were hard times, with layoffs, SEC investigations, and apparent bribes to win contracts.

Hong had met Masayoshi Son of Softbank when both were graduate students at Berkeley. Son provided much of the early funding and his Yahoo BB bought millions of DSLAM prots from UTStarcom. They found additional customers in India and have expanded into IPTV in India and Shanghai.

Peter Blackmore became CEO in the troubled times, and Thomas Toy became Chair. Lu remains a board member.

Here's a bio from a California State board he served on:

Hong Liang Lu is the president and chief executive officer of UTStarcom Inc., a telecommunications company that supplies equipment for wireless local-loop networks. With 85 percent of its business in Mainland China, UTStarcom is among the most successful U.S. business operating in Asia.

Hong Lu, a Taiwanese-born, American-educated entrepreneur, founded Unitech Industries in 1991 to develop digital and wireless transmission systems to help developing countries build their telecommunications systems.

In 1995, Lu helped orchestrate the merger of his California-based company with New Jersey-based Starcom Network Systems Inc., a developer of intelligent network systems. The new company became UTStarcom and brings American fiber optics technology to emerging nations.

From 1983 until 1986, Lu was President and CEO of Unison World, Inc., a software development company that merged with Kyocera International, Inc. in 1986. Lu then served as President and CEO of the majority-owned subsidiary of Kyocera International, Kyocera Unison.

Hong Lu received a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and English.

To put himself through graduate school, Lu served as the night-shift manager of an ice-cream parlor in Oakland, California, where he met fellow Berkeley student and future business associate, Masayoshi Son, the Japanese billionaire who now heads Softbank Corporation, and who bought 30% of UTStarcom’s shares.