DoCoMo announced that the company together with Fujitsu Labs has developed a new and improved prototype methanol fuel cell for 3G FOMA handsets. The new prototype enables eight hours of continuous talk time, three times the capacity of the existing prototype, while weighing the same, 190g. The device is expected to greatly extend usage time once it goes into commercial production. Further work on the prototype is expected to be completed by the end of March 2006.
DoCoMo announced today that they will expand FOMA 3G international roaming and videophone services in Europe and Asia. Starting from 12 July, WORLD WING and WORLD WALKER users in Seoul, Korea will be able to use the FOMA N900iG handset for voice communications and accessing i-mode. Germany will join the lineup of countries where DoCoMo users can enjoy videophone roaming services, followed by Italy on 26 July.
Vodafone K.K. announced today that it has acquired a preliminary license from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, which was applied for on 27 April 2005, to operate W-CDMA experimental radio stations on the 1.7GHz frequency band, marking the first time for an existing mobile operator in Japan to receive such a license. Vodafone K.K. currently offers 3G services on the 2GHz frequency band. However, due to an increasing number of 3G customer contracts and the proliferation of packet communication flat-rate services, a rapid increase in 3G traffic is expected, which would make current 2GHz frequency band capacity insufficient.
The end of an era! From the TheFeature’s final posting: When TheFeature.com was launched in the fall of 2000, it was a pretty revolutionary idea — a corporation like Nokia setting up an independent, non-branded site with the task of getting people thinking and talking about the future of mobile communications… With the dramatic changes in the Internet publishing landscape since then, and the rise of blogs in particular, TheFeature’s role as a leader in the community perhaps isn’t as necessary as it once was, with many quality sites discussing relevant topics and providing outlets for the vibrant community that’s sprouted up around the mobile industry.
NEC Corporation today announced that it has developed its first i-mode 3G terminal “N600i” for an operator outside Japan and has commenced delivery of the terminal for COSMOTE, the largest mobile operator in Greece. COSMOTE, celebrating i-mode’s first year in the Greek market, is the first i-mode operator in the world, after NTT DoCoMo in Japan, to introduce the 3rd Generation i-mode, next generation innovative mobile Internet services. The new terminal is the first 3G (W-CDMA) and GSM/GPRS-capable i-mode terminal outside Japan.
With i-mode, COSMOTE made a significant breakthrough in the area of advanced data services. The company’s priorities for the coming years include the development and expansion of data services in Greece and the markets in which the company operates in South-Eastern Europe, the increase of their participation in the company’s total revenues, the reinforcement of its customers’ loyalty and the maintenance of its leading position in the market.
Sun Microsystems today announced an agreement with NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest mobile operator, to deliver a next-generation mobile data services platform based on open-standard Java technology. Codenamed * Project (Star Project), this collaboration extends the two companies’ successful ongoing relationship to deliver the development tools and a secure, feature-rich Java technology-based environment that will help deliver on DoCoMo’s mission to enrich consumers’ lifestyles and bring people closer together.
