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EAccess Announces eMobile Share Issue

EAccess Ltd. said on Wednesday its mobile unit will raise 42 billion yen ($359 million) from issuing new shares, while the unit has also secured a 220 billion yen credit line from banks. Under the agreement, the mobile unit, eMobile Ltd., will issue new shares totaling 28 billion yen on April 25. EAccess is one of three firms to be awarded mobile licences by the Japanese government last year. The deal is the largest nonrecourse project-finance loan in Japan for a company whose services have not begun yet, according to EAccess.

DoCoMo Plans to Test WiMax

DoCoMo also announced today that it has applied to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications for a license to set up experimental outdoor wireless stations to test WiMAX, which they refer to as a “new wide-area wireless broadband network technology, based on the IEEE 802.16e standard.” According to the statement, DoCoMo, working in collaboration with other NTT group companies, will conduct the test in the Yoyogi area of Tokyo for about one year using the 2.5GHz frequency band.

DoCoMo Partners with Lawson

NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and LAWSON, Inc. have just announced a business alliance that will result in customers using DoCoMo’s Osaifu-Keitai (phones with wallet functions) for a variety of practical mobile services at LAWSON convenience stores beginning by April 30th. According to the press release: “The deal will converge substantial business assets of the two companies, namely DoCoMo’s more than 50 million mobile phone subscribers and LAWSON’s some 8,300 convenience stores nationwide.”

Au Announces New Handset & Service

According to a press release from KDDI/au today, the company has just announced a new handset, the W43T [.jpg] from Toshiba. Also just announced: this Toshiba unit will incorporate the company’s new 3D Navi GPS service functions and that both will be introduced to the market starting in late April. This latest CDMA-1X unit also offers LISMO mobile music and touts a 3.2-megapixel camera, although it does not have a 4GB HDD, like the recent W41T, or the mobile commerce ‘FeliCa’ chip.