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Sanyo Nokia Deal Called Off

Sanyo Electric has given up potentially lucrative plans announced in February to tie up on mobile handsets with Finnish giant Nokia as the firms had failed to reach a compromise. “The plan of setting up a joint venture with Nokia in CDMA mobile handsets is over, as both sides saw difficulty making concessions in sharing patent rights and other company assets,” Sanyo Electric spokesman Akihiro Oiwa said Thursday. The plan was one pillar of Sanyo’s restructuring efforts.

DoCoMo Testing 2.5Gbit Wireless Network

According to a recent report, DoCoMo is testing a new network standard that could send DVDs to handheld devices in about 10 seconds! The prototype uses a combination of Multiple In Multiple Out (Mimo) technology and a tweaked version of quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and is capable of delivering 2.5Gbits/sec to users travelling at 20Km per hour. Mimo, which is used in a the draft 802.11n Wifi standard and turbo versions of existing Wifi products, uses a combination of several antennas and clever processing to boost data rates.

Industry to Create Open Mobile Linux Platform

Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics, and Vodafone have just announced their intent to establish the world’s first global, open Linux-based software platform for mobile devices. A world-class Linux-based platform aims to provide key benefits for the mobile industry including lower development costs, increased flexibility, and a richer mobile ecosystem – all of which contribute to the group’s ultimate objective of creating compelling, differentiated and enhanced consumer experiences.

Ministry Ponders Mobile Network Access

The Ministry of Communications is studying making it mandatory for telecommunications service providers to allow other telecom firms access to their wireless communications networks in the year to March 2008, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported without citing sources. With the move, the ministry aims to bring more competition to a market that is dominated by NTT DoCoMo Inc, KDDI Corp and the Softbank Corp group, the business daily said.

DoCoMo Brings Blackberry to Japan. Who Cares?

DoCoMo Brings Blackberry to Japan. Who Cares?Last Thursday, NTT DoCoMo announced they would deploy the super-popular BlackBerry email device, made by Canadian firm Research in Motion (RIM), in Japan, in autumn 2006. At first glance, the news is pretty interesting.

One media report stated that “RIM stands to make potentially more money per customer with the DoCoMo deal by marketing its BlackBerrys in addition to its service.” Until recently, Japan lacked a decent, usable email device targeting corporate users.

Willcom has been offering Sharp’s super-cool Zero3, a Windows mobile OS device that has been flying off the shelves since the end of 2005, but it’s a consumer/prosumer device that is sold direct to the street and its POP/SMTP email capability doesn’t integrate (easily) into a corporate server.

[The full text of this article is available, for free, as an exclusive column contributed to the Wireless-Watch Community. — Eds]

JCB to Trial NFC in Netherlands

JCB, the Japan-based payment card company, says it will trial a Near Field Communication (NFC)-based mobile-phone payment service in Amsterdam beginning this autumn, according to an online article. The company says it is conducting the pilot because it sees payment applications on mobile handsets as a way to convert small-value transactions to its card scheme. Seven other companies are involved in the pilot, providing chip, personalization services, payment terminals, the phones and transaction processing.

Hitachi to Boost RFID Business

Hitachi Ltd., Japan’s largest electronics conglomerate, said on Wednesday it plans to launch full-scale wireless tag operations, targeting a 16 percent share of the $3.5 billion domestic market in the next four years. Hitachi, which first developed an IC tag in 2001, has forecast 9.7 trillion yen in consolidated sales in the year to March 2007.

PacketVideo Teams with DoCoMo

We missed this PR yesterday from PacketVideo announcing their “collaboration with NTT DoCoMo to enable advanced mobile music services for the Japanese market using Microsoft Windows Media technology. The collaboration has resulted in the first-ever support of Windows Media Audio protected by DRM in NTT DoCoMo’s 3G FOMA handsets, powered by PacketVideo’s Universal pvPlayer media player. PacketVideo has long supported Windows Media in US mobile service launches and has provided i-motion player capabilities for more than 20 of NTT DoCoMo’s FOMA handsets.

DoCoMo Seeking 3G Partner in China

NTT DoCoMo may seek partners in China after the Chinese government issues licenses for high-speed networks to expand in the world’s biggest mobile phone market. One of the standards, called W- CDMA, is the same as the platform adopted by DoCoMo in Japan. “We have to see what kind of technology the operators will use,” Takeshi Natsuno, senior vice president of multimedia services at Tokyo-based DoCoMo, said in an interview broadcast today. “After that, we can decide what kind of strategic alliance we’re going to make.”