NTT DoCoMo will start selling Nokia Oyj phones as early as October, getting its second foreign handset maker after Motorola Inc. for its high-speed network. Nokia, the world’s largest mobile-phone maker, will produce a model for DoCoMo’s 3G network, which allows users to download music and video clips and access the Internet at a faster rate than older phones, Chief Financial Officer Yoshiaki Ugaki said in an interview in Tokyo yesterday.
Index Corp., a Japanese company specializing in creating content for mobile phones, is rounding up TV contracts aimed at specialized interactive services linking mobile handsets and television programming. A story in the Nihon Keizai business daily reported the company was on the verge of issuing around 20 billion yen in shares to four other broadcasters including Nippon Television Network, Tokyo Broadcasting System, Fuji Television Network and TV Tokyo. When asked by WWJ, Index would say only that parties concerned were in negotiations and nothing could be confirmed yet. The news, confirmed or not, drove Index shares up 9.5 percent on the JASDAQ on 25 May. Both TV Asahi and Fuji Television already own around 1-2 percent of shares in Index.
The company is currently in partnership with five broadcasters for a remote control application that displays TV listings for the whole country on mobile phones. Launched in March, TeMo Chan is free to download, works with all carriers and also provides access to official mobile sites of TV programmers. Partners are Tokyo Broadcasting, Fuji TV, TV Asahi, Nippon Broadcasting (NTV), TV Tokyo.
Digital terrestrial broadcasting for mobile phones is scheduled to begin in Japan by spring 2006 and both Vodafone and KDDI had demonstration models up and running on the first day of the NHK Science and Technical Research Laboratories open house yesterday. An annual event open to the public, this year’s show focused once again on digital TV broadcasting with three floors of cameras, servers, receivers and handheld devices. Mobile receivers drew packed crowds herded into Disneyland-style long lines waiting their turn to handle an 801SH Vodafone/Sharp CDMA Qualcomm handset. No bigger than a conventional cell phone, the 801SH has a hybrid split-screen displaying images on the upper half with the bottom reserved for scrolling data feeds and Web links to programming, etc. Exclusive from Wireless Watch Japan!
Today Enfour announced the official content listing of TangoTown in Australia on Telstra’s new i-mode® service. TangoTown was first released in Japan in May 2002 and this latest release is the fourth time it has been accepted as official content by a major mobile phone carrier around the world. TangoTown, the first fully-featured premium mobile content service specifically services the Japanese language reference, learning and lifestyle needs of students, language enthusiasts, tourists and business travellers.
Users of Vodafone’s third-generation cell phones were unable to connect to the Internet or send or receive e-mail for over seven hours due to a network fault, company officials said Thursday, just days after a similar glitch caused problems for users.
Vodafone KK is hoping to appeal to a wider range of companies with changes to its Vodafone Mobile Office price plan. The company plans to reduce monthly basic charges for business customers from 1 June. Under the current scheme, customers form an on-net group of 20 lines or more under the same company account.
