Carriers
Carriers

Carriers

Change of Tack Boosts i-mode Overseas

Directly investing in foreign carriers was a fairly hefty blunder for NTT DoCoMo. It took big financial losses, and failed to establish i-mode as a global force. But a new president and a new plan have seen things change significantly. Former DoCoMo CEO Keiji Tachikawa led a number of huge investments in overseas carriers like AT&T Wireless and Three in the UK, in hopes of turning the operators into users of its i-mode system. The plan failed, to say the least, costing the company $17 billion in writedowns — a far cry from its runaway success in its home market.

DoCoMo Sets Ambitious 3G Goal

DoCoMo has set a target of selling more than 20 million high-speed data handsets this year, twice the number of its customers using such services, to help win a dominant market share. “More than 80 percent of the handsets we sell this year will be 3G, and the total number of 3G subscribers will be more than our competitor for sure,” Takeshi Natsuno, DoCoMo’s managing director of multimedia services, said Monday in an interview. [We noted this strategic move when they announced the low-cost 700i-series in February. — Ed.]

Unicom to Sell Both Networks?

China Unicom, the smaller of the mainland’s two mobile operators, will not receive one of three 3G mobile licenses from the government and its parent will be forced to sell both its networks to China Telecom and China Netcom, the National Business Daily reported Friday. Citing industry sources, the Shanghai government-affiliated newspaper said China Unicom’s parent, China United Communications, will sell its GSM network to China Telecom, and its CDMA network to China Netcom.

KDDI Designing Studio: Video Tour

KDDI Harajuku Design Studio TourJapan’s wireless industry provides some of the coolest mobile experiences on planet Earth. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that mobile players here are also masters at the street-level marketing of cell phones and wireless services — and KDDI’s Designing Studio is not only the latest over-the-top effort at creating a consumer-targeted mobile funland, it’s also the best. In today’s program, WWJ’s Gail Nakada speaks with the Studio’s general manager, tours five floors’ worth of interactive games, live handsets and mobile demos, and plugs into Harajuku’s ultimate mobile zeitgeist.

Dilithium Networks Announces Joint Collaboration Agreement with NTT DoCoMo

Dilithium Networks announced it has concluded a joint collaboration agreement with NTT DoCoMo, Inc. to collaborate on the development of 3G terminal test cases to advance video telephony interoperability test solutions. Dilithium Networks will, with support from NTT DoCoMo, design a broad suite of IOT test cases. Dilithium Networks will incorporate these cases into its Dilithium Networks Analyzer (DNA). Using DNA, 3G terminal vendors and mobile operators will be better suited to test new handsets being developed, as well as testing terminals software upgrades to ensure high interoperability performance.

Vodafone KK Expands Roaming Areas

Vodafone K.K. announced today that it will expand global roaming service areas for Vodafone live! and mobile data communications to 51 countries and regions as of 30 March 2005. Since launching its 3G service in December 2002, Vodafone K.K. has tied up with operators outside Japan providing W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS network services. In addition to offering voice roaming, Vodafone K.K. has also enabled its customers to access mobile data communications services abroad with the same Vodafone K.K. handset that they use in Japan.