Building on the global success of the world’s leading mobile industry event, the 3GSM World Congress which attracted nearly 30,000 visitors to Cannes last February, the GSM Association & T&F Informa are pleased to announce the 3GSM World Congress Asia. Speakers at the conference, which will be held in Singapore on 29 September to 1 October 2004, include an unprecedented line up of operator CEOs and industry leaders.
Wireless watchers will be aware that the number of FM radio keitai seems to be proliferating. Just this week, KDDI announced that its latest batch of new offerings offer the FM option. Now Vodafone K.K. is tuning into the possibilities with the the V401SA, the carrier’s first handset with a dedicated FM tuner. But does this mean FM will be an optional extra — a bit like having fins on your PDC Cadillac — or will FM become an indispensible, must-have feature for keitai in Japan?
Vodafone K.K. announced today that from July 15 it will offer the V401SA by Sanyo [.jpg image] which features a built-in FM radio tuner. The V401SA’s main feature is an FM radio tuner that lets customers enjoy FM broadcasts in stereo sound. Customers can also take photos and enjoy the Vodafone live! mobile internet service while listening to FM radio broadcasts simultaneously. In addition, the V401SA supports the “Now on Air” function so customers can retrieve song titles and artists names in real time while they listen to the radio. The new model features advanced slide-type design, 1.3 megapixel camera and lots of storage to saving photos for easy printing.
It’s back! The Mobile Intelligence Tour, that is. Building on the highly successful MIT 1 held in April 2004 and co-organized by Wireless Watch Japan chief editor Daniel Scuka, MIT 2, 3-8 October 2004, promises to be better than ever. For full details at Mobile Intelligence Japan.
Texas Instruments Inc. and NTT DoCoMo, Inc., have announced a joint agreement to develop a cost-competitive, multi-mode UMTS (W-CDMA/ GSM/GPRS) chipset to serve the Japanese, U.S. and worldwide 3G handset market. An integrated UMTS digital baseband and applications processor will be developed based on TI’s OMAP(TM) 2 architecture and NTT DoCoMo’s W-CDMA technology for NTT DoCoMo handsets and other 3G handsets worldwide. Additionally, the agreement will include development and testing of power management, RF and protocol software that will be made available as system solutions to TI’s worldwide customer base.
NTT DoCoMo took the wraps off its NEC FOMA N900i combi WLAN phone, the N900iL, today and quickly did its best to shut down the possibilities of the terminal actually being any use outside of narrowly defined office environments. According to their press release “The handset, which is scheduled to be marketed in Fall 2004, has been specifically designed to support the new PASSAGE DUPLE™ system that was developed by DoCoMo to integrate the two-network operation. Under the PASSAGE DUPLE system, the N900iL may be used as a standard FOMA handset, as well as an in-house VoIP phone utilizing a company’s internal wireless LAN network. The dual-network solution targets corporate users, and will be marketed through DoCoMo’s corporate business division and partner companies. The system will not be available through DoCoMo shop locations.”
