Year: <span>2006</span>
Year: 2006

Year: 2006

SoftBank Halts New MNP Customers

Japanese mobile phone carrier Softbank Mobile Corp., which slashed its prices last week to undercut rivals, said it had to stop taking new applications Sunday because it was flooded by new customers wanting to switch to its service. Softbank stopped accepting new customers shortly after noon Sunday when its computer system couldn’t handle the load, the company said in a news release. It apologized to customers and promised to resume taking switch-over business when it readies the system for increased volume.

DoCoMo 1H Profits off 20 Percent

NTT DoCoMo Inc.’s net profit for the fiscal first half ended 30 September was 20 percent lower than a year earlier, with the decline in net profit to a great extent due to the absence in the first half of one-off gains of the kind made in the corresponding period of last year (when the company booked a special capital gain of 62 bn yen from the sale of its 20-percent stake in Hutchison 3G UK Holdings Ltd.). DoCoMo reported a first-half net profit of 309.82 bn yen, compared to 385.28 bn yen a year earlier.

KDDI Selects Openwave Mercury Browser

Openwave today announced that their Mercury Edition Mobile Browser has been chosen to power KDDI’s EZWeb services. The browser will be the third generation of Openwave software on KDDI handsets and further strengthens the commitment from KDDI and Openwave to deliver the most compelling mobile services available in the Japan market today.

NEC, Panasonic Form ESTEEMO

NEC Corp., Panasonic, and Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd., a unit of Matsushita, have formed a new company, ESTEEMO Co. Ltd. for the manufacture of mobile handsets. ESTEEMO was established based on an agreement signed by the three companies on July 27, 2006, and will carry out the development of mobile handsets, including the development of a common software and hardware platform.

Mobile Number Portability Price War

Softbank announced it will offer new price plans – lower than DoCoMo and KDDI by at least 200 yen – on the eve of Japan’s Mobile Number Portability launch. Softbank introduced 18 new subscription plans including three packages which allow subscribers to call and message for free at certain times of the day. A recent survey by the Nikkei reported that up to 25 percent of SoftBank customers may switch carriers under the new MNP rule while 19 percent of DoCoMo’s and only 8 percent of KDDI’s users said they may change carriers after number portability.

DoCoMo Closing in on Guam

Guam’s telecoms biz is abuzz about developments in the a pending $72 mn megadeal. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is gearing up to give the final OK for the agreement, as the federal agency has received a petition to adopt conditions in which Japan’s NTT DoCoMo would acquire and merge the assets of local wireless providers Guamcell Communications and HafaTel. If accepted, the petition would solidify the authorizations and licenses of what is expected to be the dominant local telecommunications provider.