KDDI announced a new line of 3G phones to be available end of February 2004. The models include the W21H by Hitachi, equipped with a mega pixel camera, the first of the kind among CDMA 1X WIN mobile phones; the Sanyo A5405SA, equipped with functions such as “pair function” and “smart mode” and the Sony Ericsson A1402S, equipped with a 2.3 inch QVGA LCD and au’s first infrared ray communication function.
At yesterday’s regular press conference, DoCoMo president Keichi Tachikawa managed to confirm most of what we wrote about last week in our viewpoint DoCoMo: New 3G Plans for USA? Most importantly, someone in the U.S. is still obligated to roll out W-CDMA because this was grandfathered into DoCoMo’s original contract with AT&T. Tachikawa said yesterday that the phones have already been ordered! We’ll have more details on Monday.
At his regular press briefing yesterday, DoCoMo president Keichi Tachikawa said that DoCoMo’s ongoing battle with KDDI to make the best 3G mobile phones is a battle that sometimes KDDI wins and one that sometimes DoCoMo wins, but that strategically, in terms of new services, it’s a war that DoCoMo will win. As of February 2004 the handset battle pits KDDI’s W21H, A5405SA and A1402S against DoCoMo’s 900i series, with the latest, the Panasonic model out about now. Behind that, there’s a speed war, with DoCoMo hastening the rollout of HSDPA initially at 3.6Mbps then 14.4 Mbps vs. CDMA1X WIN’s best-effort 2.4 Mbps. The more important issue for Tachikawa, however, is which carrier will successfully develop a new era (or as he mentioned-about 8 times- a “paradigm shift”) of services over the next two years.
ACCESS, a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet technologies, announced today that it has collaborated with Nokia to demonstrate ACCESS’ acclaimed NetFront mobile browser for WCDMA optimized releases of Nokia’s Series 60 Platform. With a broad range of plug-in support, NetFront enables downloading and playing of popular content formats such as RealMedia or MPEG4 movies, music, and SMIL packages. NetFront’s versatility makes it a perfect launch pad for multimedia and infotainment on the move.
Despite the fact that NTT DoCoMo has to shed its 16-percent stake in AT&T Wireless Services Inc. (and probably a few tears given the drop in value), this does not mean AT&T Wireless gets off the hook from its obligations to launch W-CDMA 3G in four US markets by the end 2004. So what’s a badly burned DoCoMo, which has been forced to write down something like 1.5 trillion of the 1.9 trillion yen it spent on minority shareholdings in Western and Asian carriers, to do? The answer seems to be hopping into bed with Cingular to keep the 3G dream alive, or at least stop it degenerating into a nightmare.
If the report is true, what we’ve been predicting for months is proving correct, with KDDI building up incredible momentum over the last quarter, DoCoMo, despite statements to the contrary has been forced to protect subscriber growth on FOMA. Here it is; the Nikkei has reported that DoCoMo is planning to introduce flat rate data charges “as early as the middle of this year.” Because it’s Saturday, and because it’s the Nikkei, we can’t be sure, so we’ll have to adopt the wire service caveat of “the paper said, without quoting sources.” According to the Nikkei, DoCoMo’s flat-rate the packet data charges on FOMA 3G services first and then move this to HSDPA next year.
Gemplus International S.A., the world’s leading provider of smart card based solutions, today announced its selection by SK Telecom, the leading provider of mobile telecommunications in Korea, to deliver USIM card technology for the commercial launch of its 3G W-CDMA network. The Gemplus "GemXplore 3G" USIM cards deployed for SK Telecom support all three primary networks currently available: 3G W-CDMA, CDMA 2000 1X and GSM. They also support WIM (Wireless Internet Module) as an additional security feature for WAP based mobile commerce transactions and the VSDC (VISA Smart Debit Credit) application by VISA International for the world’s first mobile proximity payment service on USIM card, MONETA.
Lucent has deployed more than 90,000 spread-spectrum base stations and has enabled more than 50,000 base stations in networks worldwide to support 3G CDMA2000 services, far more than any other equipment vendor. They have also deployed commercial 3G networks for more than 25 mobile operators in North and South America, Europe, Asia and the Australia and New Zealand region. An interesting interview with Lucent Mobility CTO Paul Mankiewich.
Those watching this week’s video program will get to see what a howler Bow-Lingual is on Vodafone’s new V610SH handset from Sharp. We are just itching to find out if the same inventive and creative genius that seemed to permeate the old J-Phone can re-establish itself in 2004 at Vodafone KK. A recent study shows that, as we suspected, the Japanese public is going gangbusters for TV mobile phones. Having developed Japan’s first TV celly, the former J-Phone Corps have proven, yet again, they were ahead of the curve in understanding what customers want. But it is also apparent that Vodafone KK will need more than highly entertaining doggy gimmicks if it is to stop losing market share to KDDI and DoCoMo’s 3G services.
Shenzhen Huawei Technology Co. Ltd., one of China’s leading telecom equipment manufacturers, and Siemens Mobile signed a contract Thursday to build a joint-venture to develop products based on the TD-SCDMA standard. Over 100 million US dollars will be injected into the project. Siemens will hold a 51 percent stake and Huawei 49 percent.
