Fujitsu Labs Ltd. said it has developed has developed a gallium nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) amplifier capable of 174 watts at 63 volts at 40 percent efficiency. If that doesn’t mean much to you, Fujitsu claims the HEMT will enable it to make more energy efficient 3 (or wasn’t that 4?) G base stations…
NetGear has teamed with Legend Group in China and Softbank BB in Japan to sell Wi-Fi products, an effort to increase sales in Asia–the world’s second largest market for Wi-Fi networking gear. The company sees the Asian market as a major opportunity to improve its position worldwide. Japan, China and South Korea are the top three countries in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of gear sales, according to research firm Synergy Research Group.
Looking to cement its current lead in the China cellphone market, Motorola said Monday that it is considering tie-ups with Chinese firms to develop 3G handsets that use China’s TD-SCDMA standard. In a telephone interview with Reuters, Motorola’s director of global strategy on 3G, Bob Schukai said that if China does adopt the domestically-developed TD-SCDMA, Motorola’s best business plan would be working through local partnership deals to draw on local expertise.
NTT DoCoMo, Inc. announced today that beginning December 6, 2003, the service area for DoCoMo’s FOMA 3G mobile phones will cover 99.4% of the population in the Kanto-Koshinetsu region. Its eight regional subsidiaries will also expand FOMA service to an area encompassing approximately 98% of the nationwide population by the end of December. DoCoMo will continue to enlarge its FOMA service area, targeting 99% coverage of Japan’s population by the end of March 2004.
NEC Corporation today announced the launch of a new product family, UNIVERGE, which consists of key components of its IT/Network integrated solutions. NEC will continue to develop the highly value-added UNIVERGE family of products by incorporating its proven advanced technologies related to computing and networking. First products of the UNIVERGE family include mobile IP system, VoIP server, high-speed access router, wireless LAN, multi-layer switch and new generation telephony server. NEC intends to enhance UNIVERGE product lineups and to flexibly and nimbly respond to users’ needs. The UNIVERGE family will be launched globally, including North America and Asia Pacific.
This could be 3G’s biggest nightmare. Claiming to have a truly foolproof technology to switch cellphone users to and from WiFi, Calypso Wireless has done a $500 million deal with a Chinese phone network, due to roll out over the next three years. It is also “in negotiations with one of the largest cable companies in the US” to use this technology. And field trials in four (or more) European countries are due to start in January.
Five telecom terminal makers will soon get permission to join an alliance of companies involved in the development of China’s home-grown wireless communication standard. “We have singled them out from 17 applicants this year to strengthen our alliance,” said Yang Hua, secretary-general of the TD-SCDMA Alliance. Established in October last year, the alliance was launched by eight domestic companies to develop the standard.
Korea is set to launch the controversial W-CDMA mobile service in December, despite growing concerns about overlapping investment and the poor chance of commercial success. SK Telecom Co., the country’s largest mobile carrier, and KTF Co., ranked second, said they would push ahead with W-CDMA services, as planned.
Not only is Nokia facing intense competition from rival manufacturers, but its relationship with its customers, such as Vodafone and mmO2, is becoming increasingly tricky too. Yesterday the Finnish press was full of comments made by Peter Erskine, the chief executive of mmO2, who claimed 3G handsets starting to appear from Asian manufacturers were generally superior to Nokia’s.
The developer of China’s first 3G mobile phone set using Chinese standards signed a letter of intent on Sunday with a telecom company on commercialization of the product. Under the deal, the Chongqing Institute of Posts and Telecommunications, the developer, and China Putian Corp, the country’s largest telecom equipment supplier, will jointly set up a production base in Chongqing Municipality, southwest China, for manufacturing TD-SCDMA 3G mobile phones.
