Wireless Internet
Wireless Internet

Wireless Internet

J-COM to Trial FMC Services

Japanese multiple system operator (MSO) Jupiter Telecommunications (J-COM) says it will launch a trial of fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) services next month, offering customers a single number for their landline and mobile phone. The service allows a mobile phone with Wi-Fi support to transmit a landline telephone signal as an extension of the traditional home phone. J-COM’s four- to six-week FMC trial, the first of its kind in Japan, will test technological and operational aspects of the service ahead of a planned commercial launch, in the near future.

Japan Mobile Marketing Survey Results

Recent survey from InfoPlant: 58.4% of respondents say they use mobile coupons and discounts more than once per month, with the main methods of access via leaflets and direct mail (63.3%), free papers (55%), and the mobile Internet (47.3%). The majority of respondents reported using mobile coupons or discounts 2-3 times per month (26.9%), followed by approximately 1 time per month (25.4%) and 1 time every 2-3 months (20.5%). In addition, 58.4% reported using them an average of about once per month, including some who used them more than once per week. Looked at by gender, females were more likely than males to use mobile coupons more than once per month.

English Spam Floods Jpn Mobile Phones

A large volume of English-language junk e-mails marketing male impotence drugs has been sent to domestic mobile phones from overseas since late last month. According to the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, unsolicited e-mails have been sent to mobile phones in Japanese before, but this is the first confirmed instance of English-language junk e-mails.

Boeing Terminates Connexion

Boeing has announced it will abandon its Connexion unit providing high-speed Internet service on planes. Boeing said in June that it was reviewing the future of the service, which enabled passengers on Connexion-equipped flights to access the Internet over a satellite-based broadband connection. Only 12 airlines, mostly Asian carriers flying long-haul such as Japan Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Air China, had signed up for the service. In Europe, Lufthansa and Scandinavian Airlines had also subscribed. The airlines typically charged 30 dollars per flight or 10 dollars for 30 minutes of in-flight Internet access via satellite.

LG Ships New i-mode Handsets to EU

The LG L343i with i-mode on-board appears to be coming soon to O2 in the UK and in some other markets as well. It’s a low-budget GSM / GPRS unit and the handset spec. is very basic with a 128×160 pixel 262K colour TFT display, VGA resolution (0.3 megapixel digital camera) plus Bluetooth but no data card. Reminds us of the early i-mode days (circa 2001) here in Japan.

Japan Mobile Users Click Ads

Mobile Research with goo, a project run by goo research and Japan.internet.com, announced the results of their Mobile Search study. 1083 mobile users in Japan participated in the poll, 43.4% male and 56.6% female. 78% answered that they browse web site using mobile phone, and 44% answered that they have clicked the ads on mobile search sites.

Symbian Conference in Tokyo

The folks over at Symbian Japan held their Symbian Summit 2006 event in the Tokyo Westin hotel yesterday. Sponsored by DoCoMo and — by the looks of the site — well attended (Japanese only), it would seem they have been improving the platform presence here with three more handsets rolling out recently from… DoCoMo!

BREW Developer Award Winners Announced

QUALCOMM has announced the winners of the BREW 2006 Developer Awards, a global awards program that recognizes and promotes the best BREW applications created by wireless publishers and developers. The BREW 2006 Developer Awards — sponsored for the second year in a row by Motorola — recognizes wireless publishers and developers who are creating best-in-class BREW applications and services that are propelling wireless data to the next level. Japanese entries were awarded top honor in 3 of the 9 catagories.

IDC: i-mode has what it takes to succeed

IDC has released a research report (spotted on IT Wire) examining the consumer mobile segment that finds that DoCoMo’s i-mode platform has “the qualities needed to combat the accelerating downward spiral of ARPU for cellular services.” The research firm concluded that, as a mobile market matures and its subscriber base reaches saturation, mobile operators begin to feel the creep of stagnation and commoditisation, accelerating the downward spiral of ARPU. A new IDC study, titled “Follow The Yellow Brick Road: The Consumer, The Carrier, and The i-mode Platform” examines the roadmap of NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode platform and how emerging mobile non-voice applications have used it as a vehicle to enter the mobile market. While we wholeheartedly agree with the findings, the results in practice have been highly variable at best. Only Bouyges Telecom in France has had any real success with i-mode while several markets — including Italy, Germany and Israel — have seen abject failures. The devil is in the details and if you don’t execute well and account for structural differences in the market, i-mode may not be the goose that lays a golden egg… it might just be a goose.

Kyocera Unveils Dual-Mode Prototype

Kyocera Wireless and Boingo Wireless announced the demonstration of a prototype Kyocera BREW-based dual-mode Wi-Fi/CDMA handset with integrated Boingo public Wi-Fi roaming at the CTIA Wireless 2006 trade show in Las Vegas. In a real-world setting, network operators and MVNOs can optimize the dual-mode handset’s application suite to automatically choose the appropriate mode, based on environmental and performance preferences.