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Carriers

SoftBank Announces Flat-Rate Voice

Happy New Year greetings from Masayoshi Son and friends at the former Vodafone Japan – now SoftBank Mobile – came in the form of this press release [.pdf in Japanese] announcing they will offer a limited flat-rate voice package starting mid-January. The 980jpy per month deal allows unlimited voice calling and mobile mail, effective between SoftBank 3G customers, from 1 a.m and 9 p.m. Son also apparently promised if competitors decide to follow his lead, offering a lower rate, within 24 hours he will undercut their prices.

DoCoMo Acquires Stake in NTV

NTT DoCoMo, Inc. announced today that it has acquired 760,500 shares, approximately 3.0% of total issued and outstanding shares, in Nippon Television Network Corporation (NTV). Under a tie-up agreement concluded in February 2006, DoCoMo has already been working with NTV to provide attractive services converging mobile communications and broadcasting.

DoCoMo Super 3G Spending Forcast

DoCoMo will keep initial investment on its so-called super 3G network down to 100-200 billion yen ($841 million-$1.7 billion), according to reports in the Nikkei shimbun. DoCoMo has spent a total of 2.8 trillion yen on its 3G network in the past six years. Since the company will use existing base stations and other equipment for the super 3G, it would be able to keep down the necessary initial capital spending, the Nikkei said.

IPMobile Tests 42MB Wireless

New market entrant IPMobile, which was granted a carrier license by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in November 2005, will conduct advanced TD-SCDMA field trials in Tokyo later this month. While the company’s commercial launch – expected in early 2007 – will offer a maximum theoretical download speed of 11Mbps, the so-called E-R7 (evolved release 7) promises data-centric downloads as fast as 42.2Mbps.

MNP Crashed KDDI Systems

KDDI Corp. was forced to stop accepting mobile phone orders because of a computer glitch caused by a surge in calls on Sunday. KDDI officials said that au’s service computer that handles the orders slowed down at about 4 p.m. on Sunday, and stopped receiving orders. It began receiving orders at about 4:40 p.m., but again stopped at about 5 p.m. because of the computer glitch. The service resumed receiving orders on Monday, officials said.

DoCoMo to Raise Stake in PLDT

NTT DoCoMo announced today that it plans to acquire approximately 6 million shares of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company – PLDT – or 3.2% of total issued and outstanding shares, for an estimated 30 billion Japanese yen. The investment will further strengthen DoCoMo’s relationship with PLDT and Smart Communications, PLDT’s wholly owned mobile subsidiary. Smart, with DoCoMo’s backing, intends to launch the i-mode service and expanded 3G services in the Philippines.