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

Year: 2006

DoCoMo to Start HSDPA with N902iX Handset

DoCoMo just announced that they will launch a High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) service on August 31, when they start sales of Japan’s first HSDPA-compatible handset, the 3G FOMA N902iX HIGH-SPEED. In FOMA HIGH-SPEED areas, the N902iX is capable of packet downlinks of up to 3.6Mbps, approximately 10 times faster than current FOMA handsets. From August 31, all of central Tokyo will be included in these HIGH-SPEED areas, and all major Japanese cities will be covered by the end of October.

KDDI Confirms Network Upgrade

KDDI has announced it would invest 200 billion yen ($1.73 billion) over the next three years on upgrading its network to CDMA2000 1x EV-DO Revision A technology. KDDI’s Y200bn network upgrade will begin in December with consumers in urban areas benefiting first. Its total investment budget for the year ending March 2007 is Y333bn, a 21 per cent increase on the 2005-06 budget.

DoCoMo Dealing with 3G Data Congestion

NTT DoCoMo and it’s regional subsidiaries announced today that they would separately manage call and data packet transmission congestion over the 3G FOMA network to prevent voice traffic congestion control from affecting packet communication traffic and vice versa. Currently, excessive congestion in either voice or data transmissions can force DoCoMo to limit network usage for both voice and data in order to prevent network breakdown.

English Spam Floods Jpn Mobile Phones

A large volume of English-language junk e-mails marketing male impotence drugs has been sent to domestic mobile phones from overseas since late last month. According to the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, unsolicited e-mails have been sent to mobile phones in Japanese before, but this is the first confirmed instance of English-language junk e-mails.

Mobile Entertainment Forum Presentations on Video

Mobile Entertainment Forum Presentations on VideoNaviblog Corp., which showcased their local search and location-based information sharing technology at Mobile Monday Tokyo in May, gave a very entertaining presentation at the Mobile Entertainment Forum, part of the recent Wireless Japan 2006 trade show. In the presentation, Naviblog CEO & President Mandali Khalesi explained their browser-based approach to mobile products in more detail.

Naviblog is a finalist for this year’s Red Herring Asia 100, an award program recognizing the most promising and innovative private technology companies with high growth potential in Asia.

We also have clip of the opening remarks from Qualcomm’s Ted Matsumoto, one of Japan’s and Asia’s most knowledgeable mobile thinkers!

Boeing Terminates Connexion

Boeing has announced it will abandon its Connexion unit providing high-speed Internet service on planes. Boeing said in June that it was reviewing the future of the service, which enabled passengers on Connexion-equipped flights to access the Internet over a satellite-based broadband connection. Only 12 airlines, mostly Asian carriers flying long-haul such as Japan Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Air China, had signed up for the service. In Europe, Lufthansa and Scandinavian Airlines had also subscribed. The airlines typically charged 30 dollars per flight or 10 dollars for 30 minutes of in-flight Internet access via satellite.