Openwave today announced that their Mercury Edition Mobile Browser has been chosen to power KDDI’s EZWeb services. The browser will be the third generation of Openwave software on KDDI handsets and further strengthens the commitment from KDDI and Openwave to deliver the most compelling mobile services available in the Japan market today.
NEC Corp., Panasonic, and Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd., a unit of Matsushita, have formed a new company, ESTEEMO Co. Ltd. for the manufacture of mobile handsets. ESTEEMO was established based on an agreement signed by the three companies on July 27, 2006, and will carry out the development of mobile handsets, including the development of a common software and hardware platform.
Softbank announced it will offer new price plans – lower than DoCoMo and KDDI by at least 200 yen – on the eve of Japan’s Mobile Number Portability launch. Softbank introduced 18 new subscription plans including three packages which allow subscribers to call and message for free at certain times of the day. A recent survey by the Nikkei reported that up to 25 percent of SoftBank customers may switch carriers under the new MNP rule while 19 percent of DoCoMo’s and only 8 percent of KDDI’s users said they may change carriers after number portability.
Guam’s telecoms biz is abuzz about developments in the a pending $72 mn megadeal. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is gearing up to give the final OK for the agreement, as the federal agency has received a petition to adopt conditions in which Japan’s NTT DoCoMo would acquire and merge the assets of local wireless providers Guamcell Communications and HafaTel. If accepted, the petition would solidify the authorizations and licenses of what is expected to be the dominant local telecommunications provider.
KDDI has announced their second-quarter profits rose 24 percent with net income climbimg to 60 billion yen ($507 million) for the six months ended Sept. 30. The companies AU brand noted a slight increase in data ARPU (average revenue per user) to 2,000 yen for the second quarter from 1,890 yen a year earlier while voice fell to 4,700 yen from 5,300 yen the period a year ago. Total sales increased 6.9 percent to 806 billion yen.
Sanyo Epson Imaging Devices Corporation has announced the development of a 2.2-inch amorphous silicon TFT liquid-crystal display (LCD) that is just 1.1 mm thick, making it ideal for use in mobile phones and other portable devices. The Company succeeded in developing this 1.1-mm-thick amorphous TFT LCD by using ultra-thin components, including the backlight, polarizing plate and glass substrate. These features are considered to be ideal for displaying video and watching “One Seg” digital TV broadcasts viewed on mobile phones in Japan.
eMobile has introduced its new corporate logo along with a deployment schedule to commence mobile operations in March 2007. The company was allocated spectrum in the 1.7-GHz band and will initally offer services, only via HSDPA data cards, in major population areas of Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo. Their plan calls for agressive network infrastructure development, at an estimated $2 bn, and providing embedded smartphone devices by fiscal 2008.
Option’s announced that they have successfully completed the industry’s first demonstration of live HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) data card calls reaching a wireless uplink transmission rate of 1.3 Mbps and a wireless downlink of 2.7 Mbps at application level. A laptop fitted with an Option HSUPA data card (category 3 in uplink, cat 6 in downlink) based on QUALCOMM Mobile Station Modem MSM7200 chipset and commercial HSDPA/HSUPA network equipment from Nortel were used to achieve the new record data speeds. Commercial availability of “HSUPA-Ready” and full HSUPA products from Option are planned for the first half of 2007.
WiFi mesh startup Strix Systems Inc. has scored one of the largest multi-city 802.11 municipal deals yet announced, working with an NTT Group subsidiary to unwire a hundred cities in Japan over the next couple of years. The firm is working with NTT West and Network Value Components to deploy the network, which will use Strix’s Access/One OWS and IWS modular mesh products to provide voice, video, and data services in both indoor and outdoor settings. Nan Chen, Strix’s VP of marketing, says that the network could cover “about 50 million people” by the time it is completed, although he’s not sure which cities NTT plans to include in the deployment.
This past week, WWJ’s own Lawrence Cosh-Ishii, our hard-working director of digital media (and pretty much everything else in our humble shop), appeared on US Web radio program "Into Tomorrow," hosted by Dave Graveline. Dave and his crew pop over to Tokyo each year for the annual CEATEC consumer tech show, and he makes it his business to hook up with a slate of guests who can provide insidery gen on what’s happening in Japan…
