Carriers
Carriers

Carriers

Vodafone Launches 3G in Europe

Vodafone has chosen South Korea’s Samsung to provide its first 3G phone for their kickstart launch of services in Germany and Portugal, but hopes to expand its range over the coming months to include handsets from Sony Ericsson. People close to the operator said Vodafone was also in discussions with LG of Korea and Japan’s Sanyo to purchase additional phones, highlighting Asian manufacturers’ lead in 3G technology. However, Finland’s Nokia is also developing a phone for Vodafone.

DoCoMo Unveils 3 New 506i Handsets

DoCoMo unveiled the new mova® 506i series of three PDC (2G) i-mode mobile phones [.jpg image] in Tokyo and WWJ was on hand to video the event. These new handsets feature cameras with effective resolutions of more than one million pixels. They also come with infrared ports for exchanging data and photos with compatible handsets, performing infrared-based functions such as remote-control operation of appliances and authentication and cashless payments with your Visa credit card.

DoCoMo W-CDMA FOMA Adds 0.72 Million

FOMA is finally flying for NTT DoCoMo, with the 900i series proving a huge hit. Last week DoCoMo announced that its 3G subsriber base had topped three million and the figures in from Japan’s Telecommunication Carriers Association show that for the first time in over half a year DoCoMo is punching toe-to-toe with KDDI for new subscribers. In fact, it was a very close call; for March 2004 DoCoMo raked in 723,800 new 3G adds against Au Group’s 742,800. The point: The 900is are living up to the hype.

DoCoMo's New 3G Service Model

DoCoMo's New 3G Service ModelOn March 24, NTT DoCoMo president Keiji Tachikawa held his routine monthly press briefing and, with what is becoming a regular feature of his recent speeches, pounded the drum once more about the “Paradigm Shift” DoCoMo plans for its services from fiscal 2004 onwards. In a nutshell, this means introducing flat rates for packet data on June 1st, but, “We did not want to open up the window to all customers from day one,” he told reporters. Aided by a flashy Powerpoint presentation, Dr. Tachikawa also announced new anti-spam and anti-virus measures that will be implemented over the next few months. Full Program Run-time 20:25

DoCoMo Partially Denies Hutchinson 3UK Pullout

NTT DoCoMo has denied media reports here that it is pulling out its stake in Hutchinson 3G UK Holdings Ltd. after Hutchinson failed to roll out i-mode. In a statement today, DoCoMo said it “has made no decision about ending its investment in Hutchison 3G UK Holdings Limited,” but stopped short of fully denying local reports that it was pulling the plug on its July 2000-acquired 20% interest in Hutchison 3GUK for about 186 billion yen, the book value of which has withered to under 40 billion yen as the joint venture struggled to launch its 3G service.

KDDI Announces 2GHz Data Communications DO CARD

KDDI is pleased to announce the launch of the DO CARD, a CDMA2000 1X EV-DO service compliant card device for wireless data communications at a 2GHz frequency band. The card will be available from March 31, 2004. The new card will supercede the DO-BOX, and come with an expanded service area, including Nagoya and Osaka, and a revised service fee structure enabling users to take greater advantage of the service.