Vodafone Group Plc of the UK plans to boost its business in Japan by launching competitively priced 3G cellular phones around autumn and developing more market-focused services. Vodafone Group President Arun Sarin said that in the October-December quarter the company will begin volume sales of its global-model 3G cell phones, which are also used in the group’s 3G services in other countries.
An interesting mobile user survey has been posted on the Research+ site, which is run by iBridge KK (Japanese only). The survey includes responses from 1,000 respondents of all ages, from teens to 60-years-and-older, and focused on mobile data usage. It appears that lots of Japanese use the mobile Internet at least somewhat while a few use it quite a lot… And upon such tenuous results DoCoMo et al have built empires. Meanwhile, the police find that bad kids use too much data.
Here in Tokyo, the tension is killing us – waiting for Vodafone to break out of its bolt hole and unleash its global-spanning battlewagon of 3G W-CDMA phones. While new management here does whatever it’s supposed to be doing to sweeten up Vodafone’s sour performanceof late, Little-V still has the muscle, and Sharp always the technology, it seems, to pull something out of the hat; this time its the V602SH, packing a 2.02-megapixel camera (small yawn) plus a real eye opener – an optical zoom! See for yourself in our video program from the Tokyo Business Show in May.
KDDI Corp., provider of the “au” mobile phone service, said Wednesday it will slash the fixed-amount charge for data transmission services such as email and Internet access, starting on Aug. 1. The au service has lagged behind the FOMA service of its archrival NTT DoCoMo in net increases of subscribers to third-generation high-speed, large-capacity data transmission services.
While it’s easy to get caught-up in the daily 3G related news, and fancy new phones, this is an eloquent solution to solve real world …
Next-generation telephone services — collectively: 3G — are finally turning the corner on profitability in Japan after years of loss-making investment. Pyramid Research says this will the the year for high speed telephone data networks in Japan as subscribers are beginning to buy seriously into 3G technology.
I received a query from a long-time, astute, tech industry watcher last week after sending out the WWJ newsletter. I say “astute” not only because he’s a long-time WWJ fan, but also because he works as a high-level consultant in several fields, including auto electronics, software development, and marketing. His query focused on my comments that Vodafone’s 3G subscriber base was still tiny — with 151,400 compared to 3.58 mn and 13.99 mn at DoCoMo and KDDI, respectively, as of April 30. My numbers came direct from the Telecommunications Carriers Association (TCA) website, and he asked, somewhat skeptically, if these numbers were correct. I replied that they were and said that…
KDDI R&D Laboratories have jointly developed a mobile-phone terminal that receives digital terrestrial TV broadcasts with interactive services in conjunction with NHK Science and Technical Research Labs. The two companies are the first in Japan to develop such a product in advance of digital TV broadcasting aimed at mobile terminals, which is due to commence in fiscal 2005. We visited NHK’s open house for a peek at their prototype, a modified Hitachi W11H handset. The demonstration allowed users to watch a newscast and scroll through a menu selection of relevant links to view different segments, like weather forecasts or sports highlights. A few frame-grabs below, or see the video program here.
Analog TV handsets led the way in Japan last year. Now cell phones with sophisticated digital services pursue parallel paths into the future. These complex systems may migrate out of the country, but audience usage preferences are still an unknown. The following is a map to this new world of Japanese mobile technology — how digital FM cell phones have come of age and hand-held digital TV, delivered by satellite, may not be far behind. The second of a two-part series by Daniel Scuka.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) isn’t particularly renowned for exciting, fun-to-read reports. The global standards body tends to produce authoritative but somewhat plodding publications that delve into the arcana of topics like radio spectrum management and regulatory trends. But a recent case study examining how Japan’s mobile Internet works and highlighting some of the key technology and applications driving 3G is refreshingly non-academic, not to mention pretty darn accurate.
