Vodafone KK , Japan’s third-largest mobile operator, will boost its capital investment by 50 percent to 260 billion yen ($2.43 billion) this business year to accelerate installation of base stations for 3G services, the Nihon Keizai business daily said on Tuesday.
Corrigent Systems, a leading provider of Packet ADM (Add Drop Multiplexer) for next-generation transport networks, today announced that its CM-100 Packet ADM was selected by KDDI for the second phase deployment of its nationwide buildout of packet-based metro transport network in Japan. KDDI will use the 10Gbps Corrigent Packet ADM for its second phase build that consists of expanding its service areas further. The first phase deployment, announced last year and consists of over 1,000 units of the CM-100 packet ADM, is carrying commercial traffic. KDDI’s packet-based metro networks are built to support new services such as Metal-Plus for IP-based telephony and Hikari-Plus, a complete voice, video and data triple-play offering, as well as KDDI’s 3G cellular telephony services.
Vodafone K.K. announced today that for the third time it will sponsor Vodafone Mobile Eco School 2005, a contest where high school students use mobile handsets for scientific research purposes. Vodafone Mobile Eco School is a Vodafone K.K.-sponsored programme that lets students freely conduct research on ecology, science and environment themes with the latest Vodafone K.K. handsets (*Vodafone K.K. plans to lend Vodafone 902T handsets for research purposes. Communications made for research purposes will not be charged.) The Grand Prix team will receive a prize of 200,000 yen and a field trip to the United Kingdom. The field trip is scheduled to include exchange with U.K. high school students and other cultural activities. Applications for 3rd Vodafone Mobile Eco School to be accepted from 1 June.
Though Softbank seems to be making more headlines with their pro baseball team, the Hawks, than Internet and broadband ventures, the company is moving decidedly forward in its long-range plan to provide mobile W-CDMA phone service in the domestic market. On 30 May, the company received its hard-fought for license to test service in the 1.7-gigahertz band. This is not yet a license for full operation as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is still working on allocation policy for this and one other bandwidth.
Vodafone K.K. announced today that starting 7 June 2005 it will offer roaming services on SK Telecom Co., Ltd.’s W-CDMA network for its 3G customers, making it possible for them to use in South Korea the handsets that they normally use at home. The agreement marks the first time for an operator in Japan to offer roaming in South Korea on a W-CDMA network. Vodafone K.K.’s Global Roaming Service lets customers use Vodafone K.K. 3G handsets in countries and regions abroad in addition to Japan. Previously, customers traveling to South Korea had to rent dedicated CDMA handsets to roam on local CDMA networks. With the opening of W-CDMA networks in South Korea, however, it is now possible for customers using Vodafone K.K. 3G handsets to take their handsets for use in South Korea, a top-ranking travel destination for Japan residents with over 2.4 million travelers visiting in 2004.
NTT DoCoMo will start selling Nokia Oyj phones as early as October, getting its second foreign handset maker after Motorola Inc. for its high-speed network. Nokia, the world’s largest mobile-phone maker, will produce a model for DoCoMo’s 3G network, which allows users to download music and video clips and access the Internet at a faster rate than older phones, Chief Financial Officer Yoshiaki Ugaki said in an interview in Tokyo yesterday.
