WiMax
WiMax

WiMax

Japan Spectrum Draft Report

Frequency issues may be a gating factor in Japan, where WiMAX penetration depends on how the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) regulates the usage of the 2.5GHz band. In December 2005, the group offered recommendations for spectrum usage from 800MHz to 81GHz. The MIC study group chose the 2.5GHz band specifically for low-cost broadband mobile wireless services not provided by current mobile-phone networks. An advisory telecommunication council will issue a draft report in September, with a final report due in November.

Japan 3G Beats the Hype – Lessons for European Cellcos

Japan 3G Beats the Hype - Lessons for European CellcosThe International Herald Tribune ran a couple of gloomy 3G-related articles last week (see “3G cost billions: Will it ever live up to its hype?” and “Operators in Asia learn from mistakes”). It’s the height of the summer vacation slow-news cycle, and maybe the IHT was just fishing for some headline attention, but we couldn’t let these egregiously faulty items pass without comment.

3G cost billions: Will it ever live up to its hype?

European mobile phone companies spent $129 billion six years ago to buy licenses for third-generation (3G) networks, which were supposed to give people the freedom to virtually live from their cell phones, reading email, browsing the Internet, placing video calls, enjoying music and movies, buying products and services, making reservations, monitoring health — all from the beach, the bus, the dentist’s waiting room or wherever they were.

But today, most people use their cell phones just as they did in 2000 — to make calls — and the modest gains 3G has made do not begin to justify the massive costs of the technology, which has strapped some mobile operators financially, bankrupted entrepreneurs, spurred multibillion-euro lawsuits against governments and phone companies, and sapped research spending.

Over the long term, 3G runs the risk of becoming the Edsel of the mobile phone industry — an expensive, unwanted albatross rejected by consumers and bypassed by other, less costly technologies, some experts say.

These articles are worse than merely wrong: they help fuel the flawed thinking and misguided strategies to which 3G license holders are addicted (helping cause the continued malaise). So widespread user apathy and risible revenues must prove that 3G’s a loser, right? Wrong. And to see why, you need look no further than Japan. Why have 3G carriers elsewhere in the world not realised: you don’t have to be DoCoMo to succeed like DoCoMo does.

WWJ paid subscribers: Log in for our 10-point rebuttal to the first IHT article (‘3G Hype’). Note: it’s a little long, so best to print out and read poolside!

KDDI Joins WiMAX Forum Board of Directors

The WiMAX Forum, a non-profit organization comprised of almost 400 companies committed to the open interoperability of products delivering broadband wireless services, today named Dr. Hideo Okinaka of KDDI Corporation to its Board of Directors. As a strong contributor to the WiMAX Forum, KDDI’s addition to the board of directors is indicative of the overwhelming support from operators and wireless market leaders around the globe that WiMAX is the next evolution for delivering personal broadband services.

SoftBank to Trial WiMAX

Motorola announced that the company has reached agreement with SoftBank for the deployment of a WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e-2005) trial network in Tokyo. Motorola will supply the end-to-end trial system including access points, an access network, and prototype WiMAX mobile handheld devices. Expected to begin in September 2006, the five-month trial will focus on performance of WiMAX in the 2.5GHz spectrum with regards to throughput and range, as well as the speed of network handovers between access points.

Fujitsu's Mobile WiMAX SoC Solution

Fujitsu Microelectronics announced its Mobile WiMAX System-on-Chip (SoC) solution and roadmap at the Annual Wireless Communications Association Conference 2006. This highly integrated one-chip MAC and PHY mixed signal baseband SoC is designed to optimize both performance and power consumption using Fujitsu’s 90nm process technology, and is especially well-suited for PC cards and mobile devices. The Fujitsu mobile WiMAX SoC is fully compliant with the IEEE 802.16e-2005 Mobile WiMAX standard.

DoCoMo Announces WiMax Investment

Mobile chipset developer for WiMAX technologies Beceem Communications received an investment from DoCoMo Capital, the company announced today. The company develops solutions incorporating advanced wireless communication techniques based on IEEE 802.16 standards recommendations, playing an integral role in the WiMAX environment, working with both terminal and base station OEMs on early integration and interoperability testing.

DoCoMo Plans to Test WiMax

DoCoMo also announced today that it has applied to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications for a license to set up experimental outdoor wireless stations to test WiMAX, which they refer to as a “new wide-area wireless broadband network technology, based on the IEEE 802.16e standard.” According to the statement, DoCoMo, working in collaboration with other NTT group companies, will conduct the test in the Yoyogi area of Tokyo for about one year using the 2.5GHz frequency band.

Yozan Expanding Tokyo WiMAX

In 2005, Airspan Networks signed agreements with Yozan Inc. to deploy a Tokyo-wide WiMAX network, valued at $16.7 million, to deliver high speed IP connectivity capable of a wide array of data service offerings. The companies has now announced a further $26 million expansion to their contract, bringing its value to more than $42 million. Airspan expects to deliver between $5 million and $8 million of the total in the first quarter of 2006, with the balance by July.

We have noticed plenty of outdoor ads for their BitStand brand here lately — Eds

KDDI Testing WiMax Network

KDDI just announced the results from their recent WiMAX trials held in central Osaka. The company has conducted the experiment to evaluate the performance of this system, in accordance with IEEE802.16e, and confirmed that practical use in an urban environment was possible. KDDI has charted the performance of this IP base “Ultra 3G” system as a wireless method to supplement exisiting 3G service with base station to radius coverage suitable for large city scale services.

3G Mobile Future: Exclusive Interview with Tomi Ahonen

3G Mobile Future: Exclusive Interview with Tomi AhonenTomi Ahonen is a smart guy who’s done a lot of observing and thinking about the 3G future. He reports that planet Earth has 2 bn mobile phones, with more phones in use than cars, credit cards or televisions, and that advertisers, businesses and governments are all trying to understand how the mobile future will download. For a glimpse into the future, Tomi was in Tokyo last month for the 3G Mobile World Forum 2006 where he observed that Japan already has the handsets, the networks and users who have migrated to 3G, while “the rest of the world is just starting to understand and discover this opportunity.”

He points out that in Japan, roughly 30 percent of all mobiles are 3G phones, compared to the UK, where it’s only 8 percent. “We have a long way to go to catch up.” WWJ’s Lawrence Cosh-Ishii caught up with Tomi for a tightly-focused interview covering 3G, 3.5G, consumer service definition, key technologies and how marketing and advertising are starting to recognize the potential of mobile.