Year: <span>2005</span>
Year: 2005

Year: 2005

FOMA 700i-Series Webcast 2 Feb 2005

NTT DoCoMo have announced a live webcast on their IR website focusing on the new 700i-series handsets. The webcast will run Wednesday, 2 February 2005, at 17:45 JST. The presenter will be Kiyohito Nagata, VP and Managing Director of the Product Department; the title is: FOMA 700i-series Presentation. These new handsets are significant as they are expected to be smaller, lighter and less expensive than its current line-up of 3G phones thanks to some features being left out while retaining key 3G functions. Here are the webcast timings in other locations, courtesy of Time & Date.com.

Two New V603s: Killer Swivel Clamshells

Two New V603s: Killer Swivel ClamshellsVodafone raised the competitive bar a couple a couple notches today with the announcement of two new killer swivel clamshells phones: the V603T and V603SH (from Toshiba & Sharp; both 2G). The company said the V603SH is the first phone to feature a Motion Control Sensor that recognises and responds to movements. Jointly developed by Aichi Steel Corp. and Vodafone, the one-chip sensor allows customers to perform menu operations by moving the handset up, down, left or right. Vodafone think this will allow new possibilities with mobile gaming, such as aiming a gun by moving the handset while playing shooting games or swinging the phone like a golf club to hit a ball in golf games. Watch our video clip of the new V603SH above taken at the press event (shot with a V902SH handset); use Quick Time or Real Player to view this 3GPP video file.

DoCoMo's 3Q Results Webcast

NTT DoCoMo held an analysts meeting to annouce financial results for 3QFY2004 on 28 January. Some interesting points [PDF] include Big D’s plan to introduce a new line of low-budget FOMA 3G phones later in 2005. The “70X-series” includes a PDA-style dual-mode unit by Motorola and is based on a 2005 roadmap for cutting procurement costs by sourcing handsets from foreign vendors.

NEC Gears up for 3G Infrastructure Construction in China

NEC Corporation and NEC Telecommunications (China) announced that it has commenced production of 3rd Generation mobile radio base stations (Node-B) at one of the production site of NEC Telecommunications (China). The first lot of the products has been delivered in January 2005 to Europe and the plant is ready for manufacturing Node-Bs for China. The production base procures major core pre-product modules, such as channel coding cards and line cards, from NEC’s major manufacturing sites in Japan (NEC Saitama Ltd. and NEC Wireless Networks Ltd.), and other general parts such as power modules and racks from local vendors.

Shutting Down Prepaid Phones

Kyodo; Vodafone K.K. has begun unilaterally terminating services for prepaid mobile phones that have been used in fraudulent billing and other crimes, company officials said Tuesday. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the New Komeito party, plan to submit to the Diet a bill requiring users of prepaid mobile phones to provide personal identification documents at the time of subscription. Still, the measure is unlikely to enter into force until next year.

Vodafone K.K. 3Q '04 Fiscal Report

VODAFONE K.K. has announced its results for the first nine months of fiscal 2004. Consolidated operating revenue for the nine-month period ended 31 December 2004 was 1,102.8 billion yen, marking a 14.4% decline compared to the same period of fiscal 2003, due mainly to the exclusion of the fixed line telecommunication business in the second half of fiscal 2003. Total revenue for the mobile business declined by 3.4% compared to the same period of the previous year. The full year forecast for fiscal 2004 remains unchanged.

DoCoMo Releases N901iC 3G Handset

DoCoMo just announced they will start selling the N901iC [.jpg image] 3G FOMA handset, the latest model in the 901i-series, nationwide on 28 January 2005. The 901i-series offers surround-type 3D sound for vivid ringing melodies and realistic audio effects when playing i-appli games or using other applications. The N901iC also has FeliCa smart-card technology for e-money, ticketing and other handy mobile functions.

WWJ Welcomes Shinnyushain

Gail NakadaYesterday, WWJ formally welcomed long-time Tokyo tech journalist Gail Nakada as host of our MobaHo! video interview. Gail did a fantastic job in front of the camera and kept the stressed corporate marketing guy on the spot with charm, wit and a bunch of insightful questions proving this is one WWJ journo not to be messed with.. 🙂

To be accurate, Gail isn’t really a ‘New Entering Company Employee’ (Shinnuyshain); she’s been contributing very cool stories to WWJ since late last fall, including an in-depth look at DoCoMo’s new designer models and a report on the mobile Web’s first cell-phone soap opera. We look forward to seeing more stories and videos in 2005!

Solar-Powered Wireless Testing

Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. began running an experimental ZigBee-based sensor network in Japan’s western port city of Kobe on Monday, the company said the same day. The company has installed a network of five solar battery-powered wireless terminals on streetlights and 15 terminals in the ceiling of a shopping mall in the city to test the networking capabilities of ZigBee technology, said Naomi Takeuchi, an Oki spokeswoman. ZigBee is a wireless system based on the 802.15.4 standard approved by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.