KT Corp., the country’s largest fixed-line and broadband carrier, has been granted a license for its “One-Phone” services, allowing customers to use both fixed-line and mobile phones with one device, the Information and Communication Ministry said yesterday. Inbound fixed-line phone calls will transit automatically to the mobile handset when the user is inside the house or office.
NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries today announced the July 2004 launch of the i-mode FeliCa Service for mobile wallet applications, which will be used in combination with the company’s first four NFC enabled i-mode handsets—three 2G mova 506iC series models and the 3G FOMA F900iC handset—which also will be launched in early July.
On top of rolling out BREW 3.1, KDDI and Big Binary Brother Qualcomm are looking to bring BREW to the boil over the next two years by redeveloping BREW as a de facto OS, according to Nikkei BP today.
KDDI has announced “Office Wise”, a new au based service designed to provide an inexpensive mobile and seamless PBX call-service alternative for corporate clients in their local office buildings and plant areas. “Office Wise”, the first service of its kind in the industry, will launch on November 30, 2004, in the Tokyo area, with rapid expansion to the Osaka and Nagoya areas. Office Wise customers use the local area wireless call service by simply installing the required Office Wise equipment at the business site and pre-registering a local area number (up to 11 digits) for use with their au mobile phone units. In addition to calls between registered mobile phones, users can make calls to the extension lines of existing PBX networks by simply adding the “*55” prefix to the extension line number being called.
NTT DoCoMo and Telstra Corp. Australia, today announced they have formed an exclusive strategic partnership under which Telstra will launch i-mode® in Australia. Signed today, the agreement licenses Telstra to offer the i-mode service with DoCoMo providing its brand, technology and patents.
Yet another important pre-launch milestone for FeliCa, the break-through IC chip technology we feel is going to turn Japan’s mobile phones into e-wallets from next year, has been announced by Fujitsu: The company will incorporate the hardware it its next-generation F900iC handsets a scant 8 weeks from now. These new handsets, as we have argued in a series of articles over the last six months, have a very good chance of sparking a revolution in the way keitai are used in Japan.
