KDDI said on Thursday it was in talks with the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ to set up a new bank that would allow shoppers to pay for their purchases electronically using their mobile phones. Among the possible options, KDDI’s “au” brand mobile phone customers would be able to have bank accounts linked to their phones and use the devices to spend money up to the account balance, a KDDI spokesman said.
KDDI has announced it will introduce a new “WIN DATA CARD” sevice, that will enable wireless data communication though the corporate intranet, at a fixed-rate price. The service will offer packet transmission via the Intranet of an enterprise customer for remote users via “CDMA Packet Access” using KDDI’s W01K data card. Targeted at corporate clients who want to facilitate budget management of their communication charges each month the service will be priced at 8,800 jpy plus tax will be available starting August this year.
Mobile chipset developer for WiMAX technologies Beceem Communications received an investment from DoCoMo Capital, the company announced today. The company develops solutions incorporating advanced wireless communication techniques based on IEEE 802.16 standards recommendations, playing an integral role in the WiMAX environment, working with both terminal and base station OEMs on early integration and interoperability testing.
Axalto today announced that it has launched the first third generation CDMA User Identification Module (UIM) commercial card in Japan with KDDI, one of Japan’s leading mobile service providers. The Axalto cards are designed to work together with KDDI’s CDMA 2000 EV-DO third generation mobile handsets. KDDI subscribers can now access both GSM and CDMA networks with just one card and users will be able to use the same telephone number both domestically and internationally.
According to an article by Bloomberg, Google has successfully tested advertising on mobile phones in Japan, signaling a new revenue opportunity for the company. “Mobile internet usage is fairly high” in Japan, Deep Nishar, a Google product manager, said in an interview at the CTIA Wireless 2006 trade show in Las Vegas. “We’ve had a fairly successful trial of mobile text ads there.”
Update: See announcement posted at Google Press Center
The largest mobile operator in Russia, Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), has signed an agreement to buy 40,000 mobile handsets from NEC Infocommunications, a subsidiary of Japan’s NEC. The handsets will be delivered by July, according to a press release by NEC Infocommunications, without disclosing the financial details of the deal. Prime-Tass reports that NEC will supply six models of handsets – N412i, N343i, N411i, which all support i-mode function, and e121, e1101 and e540.
