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

Year: 2006

DoCoMo Working Towards Super 3G

DoCoMo has just announced that starting today it will accept proposals from suppliers for development of equipment for Super 3G base stations and handsets. DoCoMo will select one or more suppliers for each of these categories around October and aims to complete the technology with the selected suppliers before the end of 2009. The Super 3G standard is expected to provide superfast downlink data rates of over 100Mbps and uplink data rates of over 50Mbps, low-latency data transmission, and improved spectrum efficiency.

Japan tops list of lowest monthly broadband prices

Japan came second, after South Korea, in terms of access to digital communications technology, while having the lowest monthly broadband prices, according to a report released Wednesday by the International Telecommunication Union.

Editor’s note: WWJ will try and get our hands on a copy of this report; the ranking would change, no doubt, if broadband access via mobile were considered. We strongly suspect Japan would still rank as one of the cheapest on a cost-per-megabyte for traffic basis, exclusive of content fee.

Another Smartphone Soon Via Willcom

Willcom, Microsoft and Sharp have introduced their next generation smartphone. The Zero3 [es] is powered by Intel’s PXA270 CPU at 416MHz, with 128MB of flash memory and 64MB of SDRAM. In addition to the Windows Mobile 5.0 (Japanese) operating system, the phone also comes with the Opera mobile browser and Flash pre-installed. It has a 1.3-megapixel camera, miniSD removable memory, a USB 2.0 port and QR code reader. According to the press release, they are working on seperate W-Fi, Bluetooth and 1Seg TV tuner cards to be released at a later date.

DoCoMo to Launch Mobile Auction Service

NTT DoCoMo and Rakuten Inc., the operator of Japan’s leading online shopping mall, will develop a mobile phone Internet auction system and begin operating it from autumn, company officials said. The system will allow customers to use cameras on their mobile phones to take photos of goods and put them up for auction. Users can also use the “Osaifu Keitai” (wallet phone) system to make payment for goods they buy. DoCoMo holds about a 40 percent stake in Rakuten Auction.

More Internet Users Mobile than Wired in Japan

The number of Internet users in Japan accessing from cellphones exceeded those using it from personal computers in 2005, according to a government report published Tuesday. At the end of the year there were 69.2 million people using the Internet from mobile devices, compared to 66 million conventional PC users, the Ministry of Information and Communications’ annual “Information and Communications in Japan” white paper said.

Europe's Highest Phone Charges

IRISH phone users are paying the highest bills in Europe, it was revealed last night. Both mobile and fixed-line rental charges are almost twice the EU average, according to new figures. Vodafone, with profits last year of more than E45billion, claims that its Irish revenues are the highest anywhere in the world, except Japan.

(Sort of makes you wonder why they sold out to Son… — Ed.)