The Japan communications ministry said Monday it will put into practical use this fall the ultra wideband wireless system that enables indoor data transmission at five times the speed of the fiber-optic communication system. With a transmission speed of up to 500 megabits per second, the system will allow the recording of more than two high-definition television programs at the same time, the ministry said.
Via on What Japan Thinks, japan.internet.com and JR Tokai Express Research recently conducted a survey to find out about “meiwaku” mail (spam). They interviewed 330 mobile-phone owners, 60 percent male, from all around the country by means of an internet-based survey. 19.9 percent of respondents received at least 1 spam mail per day.
A project team formed by NHK and five major commercial broadcasters in Tokyo have decided that a 600-meter tower for terrestrial digital television broadcasting [.jpg] will be built in the Sumida-Taito area of the capital according to an article in the Yomiuri Shimbun. The new tower, dubbed Tokyo Tower 2 [formally named Sky Tree], is scheduled for completion at the end of 2010 and will be the worlds largest telecom tower, surpassing CN Tower in Toronto, currently the tallest at 553 meters. Video Here
Japan’s mobile-phone shipments are forecast to rise this year, after gaining for the first time in three quarters in the period ended December, researcher IDC said. For all of 2005, shipments rose 0.5 percent to 44.32 million units. Sales of 3G handsets in the fourth quarter helped offset declines in the previous two quarters, fourth-quarter mobile-phone shipments rose 7.1 percent to 11.6 million units from a year earlier, IDC said.
Sherelog is a system that fetches data from JR’s Suica RFID train pass and visualizes personal train-ride records on a large public map (or Google Map). Koutaro Hashimoto, Yasuhiro Suzuki, Toshio Iwai, Michitaka Hirose showed this system at the Japan Media Arts Festival earlier this month. The developers’ intentions seem to be (1) to support people to remember their personal travel histories and reflect upon them and (2) to create unique opportunities for communications by making it extremely easy to share personal travel histories.
In 2005, Airspan Networks signed agreements with Yozan Inc. to deploy a Tokyo-wide WiMAX network, valued at $16.7 million, to deliver high speed IP connectivity capable of a wide array of data service offerings. The companies has now announced a further $26 million expansion to their contract, bringing its value to more than $42 million. Airspan expects to deliver between $5 million and $8 million of the total in the first quarter of 2006, with the balance by July.
We have noticed plenty of outdoor ads for their BitStand brand here lately — Eds
Vodafone has revealed it is in talks about selling its struggling Japanese phone business to internet and telecoms provider Softbank. Its Japanese subsidiary has been losing customers in the face of fierce competition from domestic operators such as NTT DoCoMo and KDDI. “Vodafone confirms it is in discussions regarding a potential sale of a controlling interest in Vodafone Japan to Softbank,” the company said in a statement. “These discussions may or may not lead to a transaction.”
See our Vodafone’s Japan Exit: Thinking the Unthinkable dated Feb. 2005 — Eds.
Nippon Television Network, Japan Telecom and the East Japan Railway Co. group announced that they would start a joint experiment to air TV news inside trains. Japan Telecom will transmit the news to monitors inside trains via wireless LAN (local area network) devices installed at JR East stations. The partners plan to begin commercial operations from around July this year.
In December, Furuedai Junior High School in the city of Suita, Osaka Prefecture introduced an RFID system. 160 of the 298 students at the school are wearing namebadges [.jpg image]. The objective of this system is to make the school safe. If a person who doesn’t have a legitimate RFID tag comes in through a school gate, the system notifies teachers and a surveillance camera starts recording the areas.
Research and Markets have announced the new Wireless World Forum report: Japan Mobile Market 2006 – Your Statistical Guide To Understanding The Mobile Opportunities in Japan 2006-2007. Stating that data from the “Japan Mobile Market” statistical handbook shows that future growth in the Japanese mobile market will be centred on the under 14s and over 55s as 100% penetration is reached in all other age groups. Penetration in the 5-9 year-old age group will more than double from 29% in 2004 to reach 64% in 2007 but the largest number of new subscribers in 2006 will come from the 55-65 age group, with 1.62 million new customers.
