Japan Market
Japan Market

Japan Market

KDDI's Aggressive EV-DO Upgrade

The CDMA Development Group (CDG) has reported that KDDI is strengthening its technological and differentiated services lead in Japan by upgrading its CDMA network to so-called Revision A. Rev A’s most compelling benefit will be a dramatic increase in uplink speeds up to 1.8 Mbps and downlink speeds up to 3.1 Mbps, as compared to EV-DO Release 0 that supports speeds up to 153.6 kbps and 2.4Mbps, respectively. KDDI has already announced the availability of two handsets from Toshiba, the W47T and DRAPE, to support the commercial launch of its advanced broadband technology services by December 2006.

KDDI Wins October Subscriber War

KDDI Corp. appears to have benefited the most from the mobile phone number portability service introduced Oct. 24 to allow people to switch phone companies without changing their numbers. KDDI said Wednesday that it had a net 200,500 new subscribers in October, market leader DoCoMo saw its subscribers increase by only 40,800 while Softbank Mobile said its subscribers increased by 23,800.

3G FOMA Subscribers Top 30 Million

NTT DoCoMo has just announced that the number of subscribers to their 3G FOMA service surpassed the 30 million mark on November 4, 2006. According to the statement, DoCoMo plans to increase the number of FOMA base stations by 1.5 times year on year by the end of the fiscal year ending March 2007 and aims to expand the coverage area for HSDPA 3.5G, which provides significantly faster speed than the current W-CDMA based data transmission, while developing more new compatible handset models.

Cellphones to Translate Japanese-English

Advanced Telecommunication Research Institute International (ATR), a private laboratory in Seikacho, Kyoto Prefecture, has recently developed Internet software for cell phones that translates Japanese sentences into English and vice versa. Major cell phone firms plan to introduce the software as part of their new services by the end of the year. Software for Chinese translations will be available next spring.

Amp'd Mobile Content Coming to Japan

Amp’d Mobile, announced it will deliver much of its mobile entertainment content to Japan via a new portal service designed exclusively for Tokyo-based KDDI/au. The service is expected to launch in March of 2007. Services will include Amp’d Music, Videos, Games, Sports, and Lifestyle content. The company has stated it will also open a satellite studio office in Japan that will contribute locally-produced materials to enhance their service.

New Flexibility of Cell Phones

The much-awaited portable-number service for cell phones has started in Japan, enabling users to change carriers without having to change phone numbers. This is a new convenience for customers, but for the cell-phone carriers – NTT DoCoMo Inc., KDDI Corp. and Softbank Mobile Corp. – it heralds the start of a new war. The ease with which users can change carriers is expected to cause fierce competition. It is hoped that the competition will lead to lower fees, better services and more user options.

SoftBank Halts New MNP Customers

Japanese mobile phone carrier Softbank Mobile Corp., which slashed its prices last week to undercut rivals, said it had to stop taking new applications Sunday because it was flooded by new customers wanting to switch to its service. Softbank stopped accepting new customers shortly after noon Sunday when its computer system couldn’t handle the load, the company said in a news release. It apologized to customers and promised to resume taking switch-over business when it readies the system for increased volume.

NEC, Panasonic Form ESTEEMO

NEC Corp., Panasonic, and Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd., a unit of Matsushita, have formed a new company, ESTEEMO Co. Ltd. for the manufacture of mobile handsets. ESTEEMO was established based on an agreement signed by the three companies on July 27, 2006, and will carry out the development of mobile handsets, including the development of a common software and hardware platform.

In Praise of My Japanese Cell Phone

We just noticed this article by Brad Stone on the Newsweek website and smiled quietly to ourselves… he gets it! Nothing in the way of news there though – if you’re a regular WWJ reader – but for main-stream media consumers based in the U.S., it’s certainly one of the better pieces we’ve seen in some time. The obvious reason for accuracy therein comes from the fact that he actually spent a little time here in Tokyo on vacation this summer and had the chance to really test drive a great handset. While Brad’s item did miss on a couple of points (DoCoMo launched their DCMX mobile credit card service this spring with biometric fingerprint authentication capability on Fujitsu phones, for example), overall it’s refreshing to see a story without too much “Gee Whiz, Martha”-material about how people in Japan are using their cell phone to surf the web or send email.