YOZAN has become the latest WiMAX operator to join the WiMAX Spectrum Owners Alliance (WiSOA), and company chairman Sunao Takatori has been elected to serve as a WiSOA board member. YOZAN is the first to adopt and provide WiMAX services in Japan and is focused on providing services throughout areas of Tokyo, prior to expanding services to Osaka, Nagoya, and Kyoto. The company operates over 4.9GHz, which is a semi-licensed, registered spectrum in Japan.
Airspan Networks announced on Thursday they had completed a WiMAX network optimization program with Yozan of Tokyo, Japan. Airspan began this project back in July and the testing period last month. As of 1 September, Yozan had over 100 WiMAX base stations operating in five major regions and the company is said to be planning to launch corporate targeted web services next month.
Yozan has set up a WiMAX feasibility test in the Hokuriku region in Japan building on their previously announced Tokyo network, valued at $16.7 million, to deliver high-speed IP connectivity capable of a wide array of data service offerings. Hokuriku is typical of Japan’s mountainous regions in which it will be more challenging to implement WiMAX infrastructure.
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.
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Yozan Inc. has announced that it will terminate most of its PHS (personal handy-phone system) services in Japan at the end of November and make the shift to its new wireless broadband services starting in December. Yozan aquired the PHS sysytem from Tokyo Electric in August 2002 and has since watched customers migrate to new, faster 3G services. See the company’s Japanese press release, in .PDF format, here.
Yozan and livedoor announced yesterday that they have signed a basic agreement on the provision of livedoor Wireless, a wireless LAN servicve. Under the terms of the agreement, Yozan will deploy and provide maintenance support for a wireless network. Although the partners have yet to decide on the number of base stations and where to install them, Yozan will initially set up 4,000 base stations and gradually deploy them at more locations. The partners have also yet to decide a service launch date.
Two vendors, one American and the other Japanese, said they have plans to deploy a citywide WiMAX wireless broadband network in Tokyo. U.S. vendor Airspan and Japanese communications operator Yozan said they will start trials for the network in the second quarter of this year. They said that commercial rollout will begin in the fourth quarter, with a fuller-scale launch in December. Japanese telecom operator NTT said earlier in the week that it plans to deploy metro-scale Wi-Fi networks in a number of locations.
Yozan Inc, a pager and PHS service provider, recently announced that it would start a fixed-rate public wireless LAN service partly based on the WiMAX wireless communication standard, in December 2005. Ahead of the service launch, Yozan is starting field tests in the Tokyo metropolitan area in June 2005. This is the first WiMAX service plan announced in Japan. The company plans to have developed 600 core basestations and 4,000 relay stations within Tokyo’s 23 wards by December 2005.
Ryozanpaku International, Inc., announced today that it has successfully established itself as an authorized Docomo i-mode content provider in Japan. Japanese consumers can now access the latest news and information on the Pachinko industry directly from their mobile phones. In April 2004, Ryozanpaku entered into a service and revenue sharing agreement with MS Communications Co., Ltd. Under the agreement Ryozanpaku is an authorized Docomo i-mode content provider and is permitted to deliver its proprietary content over the Docomo i-mode network.
