KTF and DoCoMo announced that they have agreed to jointly invest in U Mobile Sdn Bhd, a new Malaysian 3G mobile operator that is scheduled to launch commercial service in 2008. The two companies will collectively acquire 33 percent control of the new market entrant.
NTT DoCoMo just announced that DoCoMo Europe (France) S.A.S., a wholly owned subsidiary of DoCoMo Europe Ltd., will be closed at the end of this year and a representative office in Paris will be established in January 2008. With the main role of the subsidiary now reduced to the monitoring of the European telecom industry, DoCoMo has decided to replace it with a representative office that will liaise in matters related to DoCoMo’s business interests in Europe.
The announcement finally hit the web this week, possibly one of the worst kept secrets in recent times, that SoftBank and Disney have come to terms on rolling out the long-awaited Mickey Mouse MVNO in Japan. An obvious evolution, often speculated during the Vodafone years, for WDIG who launched on i-mode in 2000 and claim over 3M subscribers to their various official content offerings. While Google has dozens of posts about the ‘news’.. Wireless Watch Japan may have a nice little extra scoop!
The TCA just announced results for October confirming that SoftBank Mobile has won the most net subscribers for sixth consecutive months. Since the introduction of their so-called White Plan, which includes flat-rate voice calling within their network, the company has continued to grow it’s third place market share. According to the official numbers for October 2006, when SoftBank Mobile re-launched the troubled Vodafone KK operations, they have gained almost 2M new customers.
IT Media is reporting that IPMobile applied to the Tokyo District Court for voluntary bankruptcy today. The article states that their wireless business license was returned to the Telecommunications Ministry at the same time and indicates the company debt is about 900 million yen with 110 creditors.
IPMobile announced last week that it has reached an agreement with Hong Kong based Distacom Group. The company is planning to lodge a request with Ministry, ahead of the required November 9 service launch date, to switch from it’s approved TD-CDMA format to the TD-SCDMA system citing improved procurement costs for the latter Chinese standard.
