Year: <span>2006</span>
Year: 2006

GPS Phones for Emergency Guidance

Kyoto University and the research arm of telecom carrier KDDI Corp. conducted an experiment Friday to see how mobile phones equipped with global positioning systems can be used to provide evacuation guidance in the event of a disaster. About 30 students took part in the experiment, held in the vicinity of the university’s campus in Kyoto, bringing with them GPS-equipped phones designed to display the nearest evacuation center.

Sharp 2006 Handset Shipments

Sharp expects its total handset shipments, to grow 18 percent year-on-year to 13 million units in 2006, with 3G-enabled models accounting for 50 percent of shipments, said Noboru Hanioka, head of Sharp’s overseas telecom marketing division. By 2008, Sharp’s overall handset shipments should reach 20 million units, Hanioka predicted.

Cellphone Makers Restructuring

Digital deflation, the market aberration that sees prices fall as fast as products improve, is hitting no industry harder than cell-phone hardware. Handset makers are restructuring, but the problems may be bigger than any single company can handle. In a recent interview, NEC President Akinobu Kanasugi said the company aims to decide by June on a drastic restructuring measure, such as operational alliance and integration with a rival. “If we fail to recover profitability (this year), we will be punished by the stock market,” he said.

KDDI Launching New Voice App

KDDI and Okinawa cellular have announced what they claim to be the world’s first “Voice Input” function of a decentralized voice recognition feature. To be released in cooperation with the popular GPS service EZ Navi walk, the new offering will become available for their au customers as of early February 2006. Based on a server-side application, “voice recognition on large-scale can achieve high accuracy compared to past versions” (which ran processed commands on the handset) according to the company press release.

Fujitsu to Demo Newest WiMAX

Fujitsu Microelectronics America will demonstrate its newest WiMAX reference design system at the 12th annual Wireless Communications Association (WCA) International Symposium, January 17-19, at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose. The Fujitsu demonstration will feature a WiMAX base station communicating with a subscriber station built using the Fujitsu WiMAX reference design kit. The kit incorporates all the hardware and software required to allow designers to develop WiMAX-compliant equipment based on the Fujitsu MB87M3400 WiMAX System-on-Chip (SoC), the industry-leading WiMAX implementation.

New Fujitsu-Siemens Smartphone

According to leaks around the web, Fujitsu-Siemens will unveil a high-end smartphone loaded with features at 3GSM in March. The T800 [ .jpg image ] will roll-out a QWERTY keyboard with a 240×240 display, rumored to be running Windows Mobile 5.0 Phone Edition on a 416 MHz XScale processor. Also predicted 64 MB of RAM and 128 MB of Flash ROM for storage the new unit will supposedly offer Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) and Bluetooth 2.0 as well.

Willcom taps Sonus Solutions for VoIP

Sonus Networks, Inc., a leading supplier of service provider Voice over IP (VoIP) infrastructure solutions, announced today that WILLCOM, Inc., a major Japanese provider of wireless data and voice services and the largest operator employing Personal Handyphone System (PHS) technology in Japan, has selected Sonus Networks as the foundation for its new nationwide long-distance network to support WILLCOM’s PHS system. This agreement marks the development of Japan’s largest VoIP network for PHS subscribers. WILLCOM will utilize key components of the Sonus solution including the GSX9000 Open Services Switch, the PSX(TM) Call Routing Server, and the Sonus Insight(TM) Management System, which includes the Element Management System (EMS).

Nokia and Kyocera Resolve Dispute

Kyocera Corporation, along with its subsidiary, Kyocera Wireless Corp., and Nokia Corporation, along with its subsidiary Nokia Inc., today announced that they have entered into a patent license agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, Kyocera is licensed under Nokia’s essential patents, and some additional patents, relating to CDMA, PHS and PDC standards. Kyocera will pay royalties to Nokia for all Kyocera CDMA mobile phone and module products. Reciprocally, Nokia is licensed under all of Kyocera’s essential patents, and some additional patents, relating to all standards and covering all Nokia mobile phone, module and infrastructure products.

Naked News for Japan Mobile

Naked News, which features anchors and reporters who disrobe during newscasts, launched its risque take on current affairs in Japan Tuesday. Beneath a banner proclaiming Naked News as “The program with nothing to hide,” Sunrise Corp. CEO Takuya Uchikawa described the service as “a unique concept for the Japanese market.” Sunrise, which specialises in sales of goods and services via the Internet, and Naked News owner eGalaxy Multimedia have set a target of 10,000 mobile subscribers in the first year.

Vodafone KK December Subscriber Count

Vodafone have just released their December net adds: 63,700, showing a strong 3G gain of 236,800 and a to-be-expected 2G loss of 173,100. This indicates the carrier gained at least some new 3G customers from other carriers if we assume all Vodafone 2G customers who upgraded to 3G stayed with the carrier. Vodafone KK subscribers are now, overall, trending up, if still slowly.