Fujitsu Laboratories has announced that they have conducted successful field testing for LTE using 4×4 MIMO. The trials, in collaboration with DoCoMo, took place in Hokkaido and resulted in wireless data transmissions in the range of 120 Mbps (using 10 MHz bandwidth) in Sapporo’s urban environment. This would be equivalent to 240 Mbps throughput using the 20 MHz maximum bandwidth that LTE allows.
Clearwire has announced that William Morrow will replace Benjamin Wolff as chief executive. Mr. Morrow served in various telecom roles including Vodafone K.K. as President of the company when it exited the Japanese market [video here]. Clearwire is backed by a swath of media, tech and telecom companies, including Sprint Nextel, Time Warner, Google and Comcast, with the goal of constructing a cutting-edge wireless network.
In another step forward for machine to machine connectivity, and fixed-mobile convergence, the folks at Sony held a press conference in Tokyo this week to parade their upcoming big-screen television offerings. The announced KDL-series full HD LCD models on show, ranging from 32″ to 52″ and approx. $1,500 to $4,500 respectively, will be shipping this April with the Felica RFID reader/writer embedded in the remote control. Soon we will see Japanese handsets enabling transactions through the TV!
According to this announcement, SoftBank Corp. booked a 37% decrease for YoY net profits in the third quarter to Dec. 31st 2008. Net sales in the mobile communications segment dipped 5.7% while operating income in that category was off by 8.8%. For their fiscal year ending March 31st, the company kept the profit forecast unchanged at 340 billion yen, or approx. $3.7Bn, which would reflect a nearly 5% gain on the previous year. More details after the jump..
The Communications and Information Network Association of Japan – CIAJ – has released a report on mid-term demand for telecom equipment with a gloomy, though predictable, forcast. While exports have been holding YoY results, domestic sales are expected to slip about 14 percent in fiscal 2008. According to their research, confirming widely held industry views, the rapid drop in demand for handsets resulting from the newly implemented sales plan, which raised handset prices has produced this so-called negative growth effect.
According to local media reports DoCoMo will market a dedicated e-photo frame, with it’s own email address, by spring this year. Apparently the LCD screen of the prototype developed in-house, sorry we could not find an image, is slightly larger than a postcard. The unit can store up to 1,000 photos, has a slide-show function while voice messages and video images also can be sent to the frame from a mobile phone. The estimated retail price is 20,000jpy or about $220usd.
Japan’s #2 SNS platform – Gree – IPO’d on Mothers stock-exchange last week and saw it’s shares jump 52% on listing day to a valuation of just over $1.2B, closing ahead of Mixi and gliding into 4th place for all digital-focused listed companies in Japan. While claiming approx. 7M users, only half of the Mixi base, Gree is almost entirely a mobile play. Serving as defacto SNS platform for the KDDI/au network, who was an early stage investor, the service offering combines gaming and messaging with a virtual goods model. According to company financials they reported $11M in profit on revenues of $33M in their last fiscal year while noting marked increases in Q1 FYE09. Crisis.. What Crisis?!?
While the Finnish giant is ramping-up to roll it’s Vertu-focused MVNO sometime early next year, the company has announced it has decided to pull their regular device line-up, including the just announced E-71 model for DoCoMo, according to this statement: “In the current global economic climate, we have concluded that the continuation of our investment in Japan-specific product variants is no longer sustainable.” By most estimates the world-leading ODM managed less than 1% penetration in the hyper-competative Japanese handset market.
Finnish cell phone manufacturer Nokia will start its own cellphone service in Japan as early as February 2009 according to this article on the Yomiuri Shimbun. Apparently the Finnish manufacturing giant is rumored to run service on the Docomo network, although it was widely reported this summer they would go with SoftBank, for it’s luxury Vertu handset lineup.
NEC and Bubble Motion have announced the formation of a global partnership agreement. Under the terms, NEC will exclusively provide the BubbleTALK service to telecom operators in the Japanese market. BubbleTALK enables users to send short voice messages – basically voice sms – directly to the receiver’s handset. NEC and Bubble Motion will collaborate to provide the underlying products, functionality and related services, while NEC provides deployment and technical support for operators in Japan. Additionally, the companies are aiming to offer BubbleTALK to telecom operators worldwide and create synergies between BubbleTALK and NEC’s NGN products, such as NC series and IP Messaging.
