CDMA
CDMA

Kyocera Wireless and PCTEL Collaborate

Kyocera Wireless and PCTEL Inc. announced their collaboration on a Voice Call Continuity (VCC) solution for dual-mode Wi-Fi/CDMA handsets. The solution, which incorporates PCTEL’s Roaming Client – Voice Enabled (VE), is being demonstrated on a prototype Kyocera handset. VCC technology allows a dual-mode handset to make seamless handoffs of active calls while moving between Wi-Fi and CDMA air interfaces. The new VCC solution integrates Kyocera’s CDMA voice, user interface and SMS features with PCTEL’s VoIP, SMS Over IP, single-number roaming and active-call handover functionality.

KDDI Continues Net Subscriber Advantage

The CDMA Development Group has congratulated KDDI for signing up more new users than their rivals since Japan’s mobile number portability (MNP) rules took effect on October 24, 2006. While more than one million subscribers changed their service provider between October 24, 2006 and January 31, 2007, KDDI has witnessed a net increase of 600,000 3G subscribers. The other Japanese operators have seen a net reduction. Also, when considering all new subscriptions within the three months ending in January 2007, KDDI garnered 67 percent of the total number of net subscriptions.

DoCoMo Announces New 3G Platform JV

NTT DoCoMo, Renesas, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Sharp and Sony Ericsson have announced that they plan to jointly develop a next-generation mobile phone platform with completion targeted for mid-2008. Renesas plans to provide the platform to the global W-CDMA market, in addition to customers in Japan, aiming to further reduce costs. The six companies have agreed to the joint development project in an effort to provide advanced functionality – with a common base – for 3G handsets worldwide.

Year of the Pig Shaping up as Golden

What’s this?? … mobs of Flying Ketai Pigs..?

Actually, 2007 promises to be far more interesting than even that cheeky title! Here goes our official WWJ Fearless Forecast for 2007 – all in one – huge – breath!

2007 promises to be far more interesting than even that cheeky title! Here goes our official WWJ Fearless Forecast for 2007 – all in one – huge – breath! M-commerce: The carriers? FeliCa-based services will continue to grab serious market share. At the end of 2006, DoCoMo had over 1 mln customers for their DCMX mobile credit-card service alone, not to mention the 18.3 mn regular FeliCa handsets in use as of 31 December. KDDI and SoftBank have FeliCa user bases in the millions as well.. grab a cuppa for after the jump!

Radio Waves Declared Safe

Japan’s mobile phone operators, NTT DoCoMo, Inc., KDDI Corporation and SoftBank Mobile Corporation have confirmed that radio frequency energy from mobile phone base stations does not cause damage to human cells in vitro studies. Since November 2002, the companies have been collaborating to examine the effects of radio waves. As part of the collaboration, large-scale experiments have been conducted on the cellular and genetic level using radio waves up to 10 times stronger than the limit set forth in radio frequency radiation protection guidelines for base stations. In an interim report on April 26, 2005, the companies announced they had found no effects on cell proliferation, gene expression profile, or DNA single-strand breaks. Now they have found there are no genetic alterations or protein functions that could be associated with cell transformation or programmed cell death (apoptosis).

Nokia's N73 Finally Available in Japan

SoftBank Mobile announced that it has started deliveries of their so-called 705NK, Nokia’s N73 which has been customized for the Japan market, and will be on sale from January 13. The handset features include; quad-band GSM / W-CDMA chipset for global roaming, PC Suite capability for reading Word, Excel, Power-Point documents, a QVGA LCD sreen with3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and music player functions combined with FM radio. It will be available in three colors – deep plum, light sand, and newly added color, metallic red.

NEC Starts Delivery of New 3G Series

NEC Corporation announced that it has started delivery of a new 3G (W-CDMA) Node B series “RS381, RS880.” The new series features Remote Radio Head (RRH) architecture, which divides the Node B into a main controller and a compact RRH outdoor unit. This allows flexible installation as the RRH outdoor unit can be installed within several dozen kilometers of the site, enabling response to a variety of situations and conditions.

IPMobile Tests 42MB Wireless

New market entrant IPMobile, which was granted a carrier license by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in November 2005, will conduct advanced TD-SCDMA field trials in Tokyo later this month. While the company’s commercial launch – expected in early 2007 – will offer a maximum theoretical download speed of 11Mbps, the so-called E-R7 (evolved release 7) promises data-centric downloads as fast as 42.2Mbps.

DoCoMo Announces i-mode for India

NTT DoCoMo and Hutchison Essar announced today an agreement under which Hutch will launch the i-mode mobile service in India within 2007. DoCoMo will license the patented technologies and know-how needed for Hutch to offer i-mode on GSM, GPRS and W-CDMA networks. Preparations are also underway to launch i-mode in Hong Kong, Macao and the Philippines. DoCoMo plans to expand the service to a total of 26 countries/regions in the future.