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

Year: 2006

FCC Approves Guam Cellular Acquisition

DoCoMo announced today that it has received approval from the U.S. regulatory authority, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), for the company’s 100% acquisition of Guam Cellular. The agreement was concluded on March 20, 2006 in the amount of $71,800,000. Under the terms of the deal, DoCoMo will complete the 100% acquisition of Guam Cellular through its established holding company, after which it will acquire the business of Guam Wireless through Guam Cellular and merge the two companies.

Rakuten to Launch Anonymous Auctions

Rakuten, Inc. and NTT DoCoMo announced today that their joint-venture company Rakuten Auction is launching an auction service which does not require sellers or winning bidders to divulge private information to one another. The service will be available to PC users from today and will be listed in the i-mode portal from November 20. Compatible handsets for the new service, dubbed ‘Rakuten Auction,’ will be FOMA models sold since the launch of the 900i series, with some exceptions.

SoftBank Mobile Reports Modest MNP Success

Japan’s mobile carriers aren’t in turmoil — not so far, anyway. But Mobile Number Portability (MNP) has brought the nearest thing yet to a consumer-facing market meltdown, and the No. 1 Agent of Change is undoubtedly Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Mobile.

The media, industry analysts and Japan Wireless Watchers everywhere have been hit with two sets of numbers in the past fortnight: the initial, media-and-analysts-only post-MNP subscriber churn numbers released on 31 October (one week after MNP start) by NTT DoCoMo and KDDI (SoftBank Mobile was silent), followed by the regular monthly release of overall subscriber numbers issued on 8 November by the TCA Telecommunications Carriers Association; keep in mind that the TCA release is based on self-reporting from the carriers).

Wireless Watch Japan's Web Video Triple Play

Wireless Watch Japan’s Web Video Triple PlayIt’s been a fairly hectic six weeks for Japan’s mobile industry and therefore also for us here at WWJ. Starting with the Tokyo Game Show here in late September, followed in short order by CEATEC and DoCoMo’s new 903i-series launch — and combined with the MNP (mobile number portability) official launch on 24 October — it’s been crazy.

Your WWJ staff have also been deep into planning next week’s Mobile Intelligence Japan (MIJ) mission, due to start on Sunday afternoon and we have over 250 folks registered for our next Mobile Monday event at the Canadian embassy on Monday 13 November! Phew!

We know how much everyone enjoys watching our web video programs and so we’ve bundled a few together that were finally produced over the last little while. The Tokyo Game Show was, as always and then some, a super event this year, celebrating their 10th anniversary and was held at Makuhari Messe; WWJ saw previews of DoCoMo’s 903i “Mega Games” while KDDI was running a massive (mobile) multiplayer Bomberman exhibit and SoftBank Mobile stepped out if full force with a wide selection of games targeted at Sharp’s 905SH handset.

Also, we have added our video coverage from DoCoMo’s new 903i-series launch, which introduced a whopping 14 new handsets complete with some interesting 3G data service upgrades as well.

Finally, DoubleClick Japan introduced their “Mobile MK” software and were kind enough to show us a full demo. — Yoroshiku!

KDDI's Aggressive EV-DO Upgrade

The CDMA Development Group (CDG) has reported that KDDI is strengthening its technological and differentiated services lead in Japan by upgrading its CDMA network to so-called Revision A. Rev A’s most compelling benefit will be a dramatic increase in uplink speeds up to 1.8 Mbps and downlink speeds up to 3.1 Mbps, as compared to EV-DO Release 0 that supports speeds up to 153.6 kbps and 2.4Mbps, respectively. KDDI has already announced the availability of two handsets from Toshiba, the W47T and DRAPE, to support the commercial launch of its advanced broadband technology services by December 2006.

Japan FTC to Investigate Qualcomm

Japan’s antitrust watchdog has told Qualcomm Inc.’s Japanese subsidiary that it may investigate its licensing and chip business practices in Japan, Qualcomm said on Thursday, sending its shares down more than 3 percent. The news comes after sources said last week that the European Commission is likely to intensify its investigation of Qualcomm’s patent licensing rates for a new generation of mobile phone technology. Japan’s Fair Trade Commission did not say when it might investigate the company or identify any complainant, Qualcomm said.