felica
felica

felica

KDDI/ DoCoMo 3G Phone Wars Simmer

At his regular press briefing yesterday, DoCoMo president Keichi Tachikawa said that DoCoMo’s ongoing battle with KDDI to make the best 3G mobile phones is a battle that sometimes KDDI wins and one that sometimes DoCoMo wins, but that strategically, in terms of new services, it’s a war that DoCoMo will win. As of February 2004 the handset battle pits KDDI’s W21H, A5405SA and A1402S against DoCoMo’s 900i series, with the latest, the Panasonic model out about now. Behind that, there’s a speed war, with DoCoMo hastening the rollout of HSDPA initially at 3.6Mbps then 14.4 Mbps vs. CDMA1X WIN’s best-effort 2.4 Mbps. The more important issue for Tachikawa, however, is which carrier will successfully develop a new era (or as he mentioned-about 8 times- a “paradigm shift”) of services over the next two years.

FeliCa: Trashing the Leather Wallet

FeliCa: Trashing the Leather WalletAn exclusive interview with Shusaku Muruko, senior manager of Sony’s Mobile FeliCa Business Division, providing insight on how the FeliCa contactless IC chip (now being trialed on NTT DoCoMo handsets) will soon consign traditional leather wallets to the gomibako of history. In a speech last week, DoCoMo’s “Mr. i-mode,” Takeshi Natsuno, officially confirmed that FeliCa chips will be embedded in this summer’s 506i second-generation handsets — and likely in the next round of FOMA 900i-series 3G handsets as well. With FeliCa mandatory on all new DoCoMo cellies from this summer on, and with crucial partners including KDDI and JCB already on board, FeliCa m-payment technology has a very good chance, we think, of reaching the company’s 60-million-user target for Japan by 2008. If you’re hoping to sell anything via mobile anywhere on planet Earth, this program is a must-see. Full Program Run-time 13:38

New DoCoMo 3G Handset Hits the Street: Fujitsu F900i

New DoCoMo 3G Handset Hits the Street: Fujitsu F900iLast December, DoCoMo unveiled its new 900i series phones in a splashy press conference at Tokyo’s Imperial hotel, and today, Friday Feb. 6, the first of that series, the Fujitsu F900i, hit the shops. The 900is, which Takeshi Natsuno calls “The best 3G phones in the world,” are ace when compared with the original FOMA phones. The 900is have 3X standby time (480 hours) and weigh 20% less than FOMA’s first models. In other words, the 900is are as good as DoCoMo’s 2G PDC terminals! The new Symbian OS based Fujitsu distinguishes itself with a finger print sensor and, like the other 900i models, a huge (100k) flash bucket. As you sit back and enjoy this video preview to our upcoming program of that launch event, note that DoCoMo is not saying when the other fab 4 are coming out.. yet. Full Program Run-time 2:55

FeliCa Networks Sets Up Shop

As mentioned in previous stories and our recent video report, Sony and DoCoMo have been busy setting up FeliCa Networks Inc. to develop the companies’ mobile FeliCa IC that will, we think, lead to the massive expansion of the mobile phone as a do-all contactless payment device. Sony announced today that it has firmed up the FeliCa Networks company organization with Takeshi Natsuno (“Mr. i-mode”) as one of the directors.

KDDI 3Q Profit Jumps 140.5%

KDDI, Japan’s number two wireless carrier, has both been surging ahead of DoCoMo and Vodafone K.K. with its new net adds over the last quarter, and in profits. Last Friday, Jan 30, the company announced that its net profit grew 140.5% to 123.4 billion yen ($1.2 billion) for the quarter ending December 30, 2003 compared to last year.

JCB Launches Credit Card Trial for Mobile

JCB Co., Ltd., the international payment brand, is offering a trial service for Mobile OfficaTM, a contactless chip and mobile solution that offers corporations cashless payment and office access control functions through ‘NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode(R) FeliCa Preview Service’ for mobile phones. The trial service, available until July 2004, marks the first time that a credit card payment service has been made available for mobile phones with a contactless chip in Japan.

NTT Boosts Challenge to DoCoMo FeliCa

Well, the cat is really among the pigeons now as former fixed line monopoly Big Brother NTT just announced plans to launch a challenge to the FeliCa smart-card standard promoted by DoCoMo and Sony. NTT said it will support FeliCa, a major boost to the FeliCa standard. But in a classic case of Indian giving NTT has decided to also develop a smart card supporting the government’s terminally unpopular and constantly personal-data -leaking national registry network called “Juki Net.”

3G Mobile Forum 2004 Conference Coverage

The difference between walking the walk and talking the talk was painfully clear at last week’s 3G Mobile Forum 2004 conference held but a home run away from Tokyo Disneyland’s Magic Mountain. The four-day event hit the airwaves running with a keynote from NTT DoCoMo’s Keji Tachikawa, who was able to reconfirm DoCoMo’s solid plans for FOMA through the year. But given the surplus of inertia that’s dragging 3G launches– actual and putative– the conference swayed on the tides of optimism and not a little understated recrimination between carriers, contents providers, business platform providers and engineers about the potential if not the reality of 3G outside of Japan, Korea and (possibly?) the UK.

This viewpoint hoists the petard on our exclusive video interviews with mobile phone inventor and 4G actualist Martin Cooper, who tells us about the potential and pratfalls of the wireless world as he sees them 30 years after he made that first call. We also have Playboy.com’s Markus Grindel telling us about the potential for adult content in the wireless environment, and last but definitely not least a high-paced program with prolific author and analyst Tomi Ahonen, a man who single-handedly lends a new meaning to ubiquity; he seems to be just about everywhere in the wireless space, and boy, is he always switched on. We’ll have this terrific triptych of programs up in the coming weeks, but first, let’s take a look at some interesting points at last week’s conference.

DoCoMo Unveils FOMA 900i 3G i-mode Phones

“This is just the beginning,” Takeshi Natsuno, Managing Director of DoCoMo’s i-mode Planning Department, told Wireless Watch of the new flagship 5 FOMA 900i handsets that DoCoMo showed today and that should be released in or around February 2004. Before about 600 journalists, Natsuno’s message was that, after two years of battling battery/bulk problems, here finally, were 3G phones capable of 2G performance in terms of standby time and weight. But beyond this, DoCoMo has clearly worked hard to differentiate the phones from being more than “Super 505i” and hinted that the company was considering lowering data packet rates to compete with KDDI WIN and Vodafone K.K.’s recent Happy Packet rate cuts. But wow! What’s loaded in the the new fab 5, for example 500 Kbytes of gaming capability will be inevitably be the Final Fantasy for gamers (the game appears to be preloaded) and a real nightmare for competitors. Natsuno san, not known for being shy on stage at these sort of events, seemed to speak from the heart when he called the lineup the “best mobile phones in the world!” The critical question for DoCoMo, however, is differentiation from the already all-singing, all-dancing 505 series, and quite a few of our doubts were answered. But questions also remain. We’ll have a video program on the show, the phones and the figures behind the models up soon. Before that, here’s some of the upgraded low down on the fantatabulous 900is. And THEN there are the P900iV and the F900iT.

Mobile FeliCa Trial Launch: Video Report

Mobile FeliCa Trial Launch: Video ReportWireless Watch Japan attended NTT DoCoMo’s December 15 press conference demonstrating the first phones to feature the Sony developed “Felica” peer-to-peer payment system. To debit the cash stored on the phone’s IC chip, all you do is swipe the handset in front of a reader; more cash can be downloaded via the i-mode network. The trial, using 2,500 each of the N504iC and SO504iC handsets (engineered by NEC and Sony) will run from today and until mid-2004, when full commercial service is expected to start. DoCoMo have lined up 27 e-payment service providers, including banks, convenience stores, TV broadcasters, game software publishers, and a retail ticketing outlet. There are already 17 million Japanese happily using Felica-based IC cards for train tickets and convenience store payments, many of whom have – surprise! – cell phones. We think the synergy and revenue potential of the two technologies is obvious – and so do DoCoMo’s accountants. Watch our first-on-the Web video report from Monday’s press event – and rethink your i-mode forecasts. Full Program Run-time 3:00