Year: <span>2009</span>
Year: 2009

Year: 2009

NTT Com Enters MVNO Market

NTT Com announced today that it has begun accepting subscriptions to its new flat-rate billing plans for “Mobile/Remote Access DOCOMO Model,” a service for secure broadband access, including via NTT DOCOMO’s 3.5G HSDPA network, to NTT Com-provided VPN. NTT Com also announced that connection to the service is now possible via wireless routers, and that the service is compatible with telemetering systems for machine-to-machine transmission of data. The service, which NTT Com will provide as an MVNO, will be expanded through partnerships in a number of fields for increased compatibility with telemetering systems. NTT Com also plans to expand the lineup of compatible mobile handsets by releasing original models or introducing lower-priced models.

Japan's Soft Power for Global Business

Of course this stunt was bound to get a few tongues wagging, however the meat within, indicating the Feds renewed push for moving domestic digital content into markets overseas, is apparent if not politically motivated. Prime Minister Aso, a well-known manga maniac, was recently quoted as suggesting his government would like to create 500,000 new jobs in the music, fashion and media space by 2020.

Kyocera Demos iBurst at CTIA

Kyocera Communications, a sales, marketing and service organization for Kyocera and Sanyo-branded products in the Americas, presented their technology portfolio of four broadband wireless devices at the CTIA trade show in Las Vegas. Along with its full line of mobile phones, the company showed a prototype all-in-one LTE base station along with three iBurst terminal devices in its booth at this years event.

New Sharp Sidekick for T-Mobile

A new Sharp handset is headed stateside for T-Mobile as this post shows the Sharp Sidekick PV300 has shown up with the FCC. While it’s possible they are running the device through the FCC to get global roaming certification, however the certification for AWS 3G leads one believe it is destined for T-Mobile as AWS 3G is the kind T-Mobile uses.

KDDI launches New Handset Brand

KDDI Unveils New Handset BrandThe good folks over at KDDI have announced [in Japanese] a new lineup of devices, tagged “iida” for innovation, imagination, design and art, with 3-models on launch to follow in the foot steps of their in-house AU Design Project. The G9 slider, Misora clamshell and stylish collaboration with Yayoi Kusama, details are available Here, along with teasers for more units to come.

We note the Solar-powered concept model on display during CEATEC 2008 seems to be in the pipeline and the Pico Projector which can also connect to several other AU handsets as well. All of these devices are on display now over at the Designing Studio in Harajuku!

New DoCoMo U.S. Advisory Board

DoCoMo announced that it has established its fifth U.S. Advisory Board and will convene the first meeting in the United States on April 8. The board will be chaired by former FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell, currently chairman of the MK Powell Group and a senior advisor to Providence Equity Capital, who also chaired the previous board. He will be joined by 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics Dr. Joseph E. Stiglitz, currently a professor at Columbia University.

Dell Making MVNO Move in Japan?

Mark over at TechRadar has a post on recent rumblings by Dell in the UMPC space. We have seen the increasing push to sell flat-rate data subscriptions – primed by ‘free’ mini laptop hooked to two-year contract – over the last six months (from all operators offering several OEM models) but this is the first whiff of an MVNO play. According to the article, machine will go on sale here this summer with internal HSDPA cards which allow max. downlink speeds of 7.2Mbps for an estimated $500. While there is no indication of on-going access fees, the current typical all you can surf account runs about $40 per month. Now that would be interesting!

Engagement Marketing with QR Codes & 1Seg

Lux is running a very cool campaign in Shibuya this week utlizing 1Seg digital TV broadcasting with huge QR Codes on ad posters. They have setup a temporary display, outside ‘the’ fashion central 109 building, which calls for users to scan the code in order to get instructions on how they can tune-in (spotcasting on channel 34) for more details. The content awaiting them includes a mobile micro-site with a promotional tv commercial, featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones, along with a slick call-to-action for trendy girls to audition for a future campaign.

MobiActions Gaming For Toshiba

The good folks at Mobiactions are in the news again with another exciting mobile interactive game campaign to promote Toshiba’s new Note PC’s in Japan. The Toshiba branded game uses the latest Mobiactions with Veeplayer mobile interactive video and voice response (IVVR) technology so users can dial in and immediately play a fun game that allows them to score points and win prizes.

Kddi Introduces HTC Smartphone

Kddi Introduces HTC SmartphoneAU has announced their E30HT handset, running Windows mobile 6.1 pro edition, will be available as of May. Also of note, the EVDO Rev.1 network connection speed package is topped up with a full flat-rate data plan so that heavy users will be entitled to connect the device as a so-called walking hotspot for their laptops as well.

Congrats to the folks at scanR – who presented at MoMo Tokyo earlier this week – as their application comes loaded as a pre-install, other goodies include; Adobe Reader, Opera Mobile, Navitime, Microsoft Office and Outlook with ActiveSync. Thankfully the CDMA Global Passport package is also available for clients when roaming overseas. HTC finally has handsets on all three operators!