Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG) announced a global distribution agreement with Vodafone to provide Disney Mobile services to Vodafone live! customers in the following markets: Australia; Egypt; Germany; Greece; Hungary; Ireland; Italy; Malta; The Netherlands; New Zealand; Portugal; Spain; Sweden and Switzerland. WDIG and Vodafone’s relationship began in October 2001 with the launch of the Disney Mobile service on J-Phone (now Vodafone K.K) in Japan.
Vodafone KK will introduce after late April the VC701SI Vodafone Connect Card, a datacard compatible with its 3G W-CDMA network in Japan. Capable of modem and communication functions, the VC701SI, manufactured by Seiko Instruments, is Vodafone’s first 3G CompactFlash (CF) card data terminal.
At last week’s regular press conference, DoCoMo president Keichi Tachikawa managed to confirm most of what we wrote about in last week’s WWJ Viewpoint DoCoMo: New 3G Plans for USA?. Most importantly, someone in the U.S. is still obligated to roll out third-gen W-CDMA services because this was grandfathered into DoCoMo’s original contract with AT&T Wireless. Tachikawa said last week that the phones have already been ordered! However, DoCoMo is still in hold mode about how it will approach the purchase of its stake in AT&T Wireless Services by Cingular Wireless LLC (should the deal be approved later in the year). One option on the table is for DoCoMo to invest in Cingular.
Reuters has just reported that DoCoMo might cut its ties with Hutchinson because of 3 UK’s abandonment of i-mode in the UK, although the story quotes DoCoMo denying its making any changes to its relationship with Hutchinson. What is becoming clear, however, is that DoCoMo may be making moves to partner with mm02 Plc as an alternative to 3UK, with DoCoMo president Keichi Tachikawa admitting as much at last week’s monthly press conference.
KDDI announced a new line of 3G phones to be available end of February 2004. The models include the W21H by Hitachi, equipped with a mega pixel camera, the first of the kind among CDMA 1X WIN mobile phones; the Sanyo A5405SA, equipped with functions such as “pair function” and “smart mode” and the Sony Ericsson A1402S, equipped with a 2.3 inch QVGA LCD and au’s first infrared ray communication function.
At yesterday’s regular press conference, DoCoMo president Keichi Tachikawa managed to confirm most of what we wrote about last week in our viewpoint DoCoMo: New 3G Plans for USA? Most importantly, someone in the U.S. is still obligated to roll out W-CDMA because this was grandfathered into DoCoMo’s original contract with AT&T. Tachikawa said yesterday that the phones have already been ordered! We’ll have more details on Monday.
At his regular press briefing yesterday, DoCoMo president Keichi Tachikawa said that DoCoMo’s ongoing battle with KDDI to make the best 3G mobile phones is a battle that sometimes KDDI wins and one that sometimes DoCoMo wins, but that strategically, in terms of new services, it’s a war that DoCoMo will win. As of February 2004 the handset battle pits KDDI’s W21H, A5405SA and A1402S against DoCoMo’s 900i series, with the latest, the Panasonic model out about now. Behind that, there’s a speed war, with DoCoMo hastening the rollout of HSDPA initially at 3.6Mbps then 14.4 Mbps vs. CDMA1X WIN’s best-effort 2.4 Mbps. The more important issue for Tachikawa, however, is which carrier will successfully develop a new era (or as he mentioned-about 8 times- a “paradigm shift”) of services over the next two years.
The Government is considering a relatively new standard known as TDD (time division duplex) as a technology that up to three new providers could use to operate high-speed, 3G networks. If licenses are granted, it would spell new competition for NTT DoCoMo Inc, KDDI Corp and Vodafone KK. So far, three companies including Japan’s largest broadband operator, Softbank Corp, have expressed interest in obtaining licenses to run TDD networks.
ACCESS, a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet technologies, announced today that it has collaborated with Nokia to demonstrate ACCESS’ acclaimed NetFront mobile browser for WCDMA optimized releases of Nokia’s Series 60 Platform. With a broad range of plug-in support, NetFront enables downloading and playing of popular content formats such as RealMedia or MPEG4 movies, music, and SMIL packages. NetFront’s versatility makes it a perfect launch pad for multimedia and infotainment on the move.
Olympus Corp. has announced that it has developed a new bar code system that enables camera cellular phones to read STCodes that are printed on newspapers, etc. A service will be launched March 4 in which a cell phone that reads the code printed on a newspaper, for example, will automatically connect to a specific Web site that will then transmit an audio format of the selected article.
