CDMA
CDMA

CDMA

QUALCOMM Announces Open Call for BREW 2005 Developer Awards

QUALCOMM Incorporated, pioneer and world leader of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital wireless technology, today announced the open call for submissions for the BREW® 2005 Developer Awards. BREW publishers and developers are encouraged to submit their top BREW applications by completing an online entry form and providing a demo of their application. The deadline for online nominations is March 11 and submission materials must be received by March 28. Finalists will be announced on the BREW 2005 Awards Web site on May 9, then winners will be revealed at the awards ceremony hosted during the BREW 2005 Conference, June 1-3, in San Diego. For more information, visit: www.brew2005awards.com.

eAccess Announces 3G Trials

Broadband Internet provider eAccess announced at a press conference here Thursday that it will start W-CDMA experiments in late January in the 1.7-GHz spectrum by partnering with Fujitsu. eAccess President Sachio Senmoto appeared confident that Japan’s telecoms ministry will approve the company’s application to offer mobile services starting in 2006. The trials include performance testing of W-CDMA base stations and a speed evaluation of next-gen HSDPA (so-called Super 3G).

New Year Gadget Shopping: Cell Phones that Look Like iPods

One of the best things about having a few days off over the holiday season in Tokyo is having time to wander casually through Akihabara and check out the latest gadgets. 2005 is shaping up as a showdown year for music-enabled portable devices and I couldn’t help but notice how DoCoMo’s new 3G handset, the SH901ic by Sharp, really does seem to have at least a slight style similarity to the iPod. As the network speed increases — and with flat-rate packet costs and improved handset technology — critical mass adoption by mainstream users buying even more data seems to be at hand. As competition increases, how will carriers, handset makers and content providers adapt their offerings over the coming year?

While it remains to be seen exactly what kind of applications and services will hit the streets, it has become increasingly clear that a race is on. Having both KDDI and Vodafone launch fixed-line access to content for mobile devices in Q42004 shows, at least in the mid-term, they are ramping up the business model to deliver larger-size files to end users. A little crystal-ball gazing for the coming year — and some very cool Akiba gadget photos — after the jump.

Hitachi Beats Samsung at KDDI – Comments

In a report on Unstrung, Justin Springham comments on the significance of this week’s KDDI contract awards to Korean and Japanese vendors (noted by WWJ here). Yesterday, Hitachi seemed to beat Samsung’s day-earlier deal with KDDI Corp., revealing that it had also secured a CDMA 1XEV-DO Revision-A network upgrade deal with the carrier worth approximately 100 billion yen. Springham writes that: “Hitachi’s win eclipses the earlier $800 million deal with Samsung. Reports suggested Samsung claimed to be the sole supplier of Revision A kit to KDDI.”

Vodafone Releases 902SH 3G Phone

Vodafone K.K. just announced that the company will commence sales of their high-end V902SH 3G handset (by Sharp) on 29 December in the Kanto-Koshin region, with Japan nationwide rollout following thereafter. The V902SH [.jpg image] features a Mobile ASV display, which is based on ASV (Advanced Super View) liquid crystal display technology found in Sharp’s AQUOS line of LCD TVs. The company says customers can “enjoy remarkably clear viewing in bright locations outside and in dark spots indoors.” In addition, the handset display offers a 160-degree viewing angle from all angles without colour distortion in conformance with JEITA standards; it also has a 5:1 contrast ratio.

KDDI Music Downloads: $70mn Annual Revenue?

According to a 15 December report on IT Media (Japanese), KDDI’s Chaku-uta Full music download service has achieved over 360,000 downloads in the first 3 weeks — great results based on only about 200,000 supporting handsets. A keen WWJ reader has taken this data and extrapolated into the future to estimate that the 3G music service could be generating revenues of US $70 million annually after 2 years — and that’s assuming very conservative terminal penetration.