Japan’s University of Tsukuba is is working with Nortel to create a wireless mesh network which will cover a 230,000 sq metre area of the campus and enable outdoor broadband wireless access to the public internet and the university network. Nortel business partner Marubeni Solutions is handling network implementation.
NEC and Matsushita (Panasonic) are in talks to extend their co-operation in the mobile phone sector in an effort to ensure survival in the overcrowded Japanese market, NEC’s president said on Monday. The expanded collaboration would focus on handset manufacturing and could include the joint procurement of components and further collaboration in research and development. The two groups already co-operate in 3G technology research. According to reports, three-way talks among NEC, Matsushita and Texas Instruments Inc. about cellphone cooperation are in their final stage. The consolidation strategy was mentioned by NEC’s incoming president, Kaoru Yano, in March.
A pair of press releases just came through from Vodafone K.K. with news that WDIG will be rolling out comics and games on Vodafone live! starting June 1, 2006. Disney Mobile Comics will be Disney’s first-ever digital comic content for mobile phones, and will consist of three types of mobile comics for customers to enjoy. Also announced, Disney’s first Bluetooth multiplayer 3D racing game. The Cars 3D V-appli will feature characters from Disney/Pixar’s latest movie Cars, which is scheduled for release in Japan on July 1. Cars 3D is said to be the first game based on a Disney/Pixar movie to appear ahead of film release.
NTT DoCoMo Inc. plans to make available the flat-rate pricing service of U.S. online music distributor Napster LLC for its new cellphone handsets to be marketed from this summer, informed sources said Saturday. Music distribution has been available for mobile phones at about 300 yen per track in Japan. In the U.S. market, Napster offers more than 2 million pieces of music for users at fixed-rate charges equivalent to about 1,100-1,600 yen a month, they added.
QUALCOMM announced its single-chip Universal Broadcast Modem (UBM) solution supporting three of the world’s leading mobile broadcast standards. The UBM solution unifies the world’s leading mobile TV standards into a single, cost-effective chip with support for FLO technology, as well as for Digital Video Broadcasting — Handheld (DVB-H) and one-segment Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting — Terrestrial (ISDB-T), creating a common platform that handset manufacturers can leverage to address multiple standards. Designed to be compatible with both CDMA2000 and WCDMA/UMTS devices, the UBM solution is expected to sample in the first quarter of 2007.
[This represents a huge opportunity for the 1Seg platform in Japan — Eds]
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. revealed that it plans to supply mobile phones to wireless operator KDDI Corp., adding a second customer for its handset business in Japan. The maker of Panasonic products currently supplies cellphones in Japan to NTT DoCoMo Inc., the country’s top mobile operator, but does not do business with second-ranked KDDI and third-largest Vodafone K.K., a unit of Softbank Corp.
KDDI has reported hitting 50 million full-song downloads as of May 20 2006. The service launched in November 2004 and passed the 10 million mark 6 months later. There are an estimated 80 mobile music stores selling full-song downloads with a total of over 150 thousand titles to choose from. As of November 2005 there was approx. 5 million KDDI customers with full-song download capable handsets in Japan, currently there are about 35 compatible models, including the most recently announced 7 new phones.
The recent article via the Yomiuri about DoCoMo’s roadmap for adding GSM functionality to their handset fleet is spreading across the web like wildfire. The point missed would be that ‘the news’ was actually announced back in February! “NTT DoCoMo, Inc., Renesas Technology Corp., Fujitsu Limited, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and Sharp Corporation today announced that they will jointly develop a comprehensive mobile phone platform combining a single-chip LSI for dual mode handsets supporting HSDPA /W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE, and core software such as operating systems.”
Watching the business of wireless in Japan just keeps getting better!
Last week brought a slew of new announcements, including news of the JPY11 bn SoftBank/Vodafone joint venture, confirmation that the company formerly known as Vodafone KK will henceforth be known as ‘SoftBank Mobile’ and details on the long-awaited MNP (mobile number portability) implementation. Subscribers can access WWJ’s insight on the first two in today’s Viewpoint (here), but read on below for our take on MNP — possibly the biggest revolution in Japan mobile since i-mode itself.
First, a little history.
Until now, the Big Three cellular carriers (DoCoMo, KDDI/au and Vodafone), as well as the smaller PHS carriers (Willcom, Astel, etc.), have run their networks as independent — and highly competitive — fiefdoms. There has been nothing like number portability or, for that matter, portability of any other service/feature. If you switched carriers, you lost your number…
The historic SoftBank / Vodafone press conference, held 18 May at Tokyo’s swanky Conrad Hilton, generated a flood of information and even more questions. Not much seems certain after Softbank’s Masayoshi Son and Vodafone’s Arun Sarin dropped the announcement of a never-before-tried plan for UK carrier Vodafone PLC to cooperate with Japanese Internet services company Softbank in a 50-50 joint venture aimed at developing mobile phones, services and content (mostly for Japan). On one level, the move is a straightforward play to enable Vodafone to keep at least some connection to Japan’s cutting-edge market and extract expertise, content, devices and business models (everything the old Vodafone KK was supposed to do). But looking deeper, the devil is readily apparent in the details: Who pays for what? To whom does value flow? Will VF be willing to implement strategy and devices from Japan via Son that they weren’t via their own wholly owned subsidiary? And what’s in it for Softbank — What could they possibly need from The Rest of the World?
As the humidity settles in for another long, torrid Tokyo summer, a ‘wait-and-see’ response is the most generous recommendation WWJ can make; however we can point to one bright spot: the new flagship handset, the 905SH. Available on 27 May, the phone is probably the best piece of mobile gear available on the Tokyo street this season. But will it be enough to stem the inevitable tide of subscribers from the company formerly known as Vodafone to Softbank competitors? Probably not. (Subscribers log in for more commentary on the rebranding, the new VF-Softbank joint venture and other Japan mobile highlights.)
