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digital-tv

digital-tv

KDDI's Competitive Edge in Japan

Over the past 12 to 18 months the mobile division of KDDI, known here as ‘au,’ has been leading the way in Japan’s cellular marketplace. During a recent interview at the 3G World Forum, one European visitor asked the seemingly obvious question, “What is the main reason for their success?” KDDI au's Competitive Edge in Japan by Mobikyo KK

The reasonable answer is that it’s actually a combination of several factors, but one thing stands out. Compared to the NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone business models, au has a very tight focus on the domestic market. Their attention to detail in customer service and product offerings is not challenged by how the product mix and content offerings might fit into the company’s global strategy — and it shows. This has allowed au to take the lead in areas like GPS, flat-rate data and faster networks, all provided to the consumer on affordable price plans. The carrier now offers a full suite of popular and useful services ranging from Navitime, EZ auctions, EZ book, EZ channel, EZ games, and EZ FM to (recently introduced) mobile IM (‘Hello Messenger’), mobile blogging (‘DuoBlog’) and Lismo.

Looking again at au’s recent blitz of cutting-edge models at Designing Studio last week, just in time for Japan’s peak spring sales season, we were truly impressed; it will be a tough choice for shoppers. The phones and services strongly illustrate one of the most fundamental and important learnings about Japan’s mobile success that we’ve been trumpeting for years.

KDDI Introduces Seven New 3G Handsets

This week was a new-cell-phone-announcement triple-play! Following DoCoMo on Tuesday and Vodafone yesterday, KDDI’s au brand held a press conference this afteroon at the super-swank New Otani hotel to unveil an impressive spring line-up. From L. to R. (below): Toshiba’s W41T with Japan’s first built-in 4GB HDD, the slick-styled Neon, is the latest addition to the in-house Design Project; Hitachi’s W41H ‘One-Seg’ digital TV phone; Casio’s W41CA, featuring a FeliCa mobile wallet; Kyocera’s W41K is a ‘Full Function’ camera phone with a 3.2-megapixel cam; SonyEricsson’s W41S is also FeliCa IC-enabled; and finally the Sanyo W41SA, which has an interesting handwritten character scanning application. The new fleet will hit store shelves starting in February along with the introduction of an enhanced Listen Mobile Service.

KDDI Introduces Seven New 3G Handsets by Mobikyo KK

Wireless Watch Japan – Top Stories for 2005

Wireless Watch Japan - Top Stories for 2005We published 596 articles on Wireless Watch Japan in 2005 and thought you might enjoy looking back at the most popular Japan mobile industry highlights from the year. The links below, three from each month, represent the two top stories (by volume of visitor requests) and a third which we consider a significant development in that 30-day period.

It’s been a year of explosive year in the mobile world and 2006 is set to be even much more interesting with faster mobile networks, more powerful handsets and compelling contents settling into the mainstream. Here in Japan, we are expecting a dramatic increase in m-commerce adoption, driven in part by Mobile Suica’s launch, set for later in January and the start of ‘One-Seg’ digital TV broadcasting starting — on all three carriers — on 1 April (no joke). We also see a potential increase in churn as a result of the (belated) introduction of number portability and with three new carriers entering the market, even DoCoMo is concerned.

One of the more obvious action areas in 2006 will be the increase of M&A activity at all levels; in particular, look for consolidation in the Japanese handset market. Meanwhile, lets boldly predict that we’ll have at least a few 3.5G (HSDPA) phones on the streets of Tokyo by this time next year. Interesting times ahead, indeed. Get all the skinny after the jump!

Smallest VCXO for Mobile Handsets

Epson Toyocom Corp. announced that it will release a new series of voltage-controlled X’tal (crystal) oscillators (VCXO) that support mobile handsets capable of receiving terrestrial digital TV broadcasts. The VG-4231CE Series will be among the smallest-footprint crystal solutions in the industry yet will offer frequency control characteristics equivalent to their predecessors. This will allow them to meet the ongoing demand for miniaturization while also easily handling the complicated timing of high-quality image recording signals. Samples will begin shipping in February 2006.

Texas Instruments and DoCoMo JV

Fulfilling a commitment made last year to jointly develop 3G solutions with NTT DoCoMo, Texas Instruments Inc. today announced it has sampled a cost-competitive, multi-mode UMTS chipset developed with NTT DoCoMo to serve the worldwide 3G handset market. Part of TI’s OMAP-Vox architecture, the new OMAPV2230 solution is an integrated UMTS dual-mode digital baseband processor and advanced applications processor based on TI’s high-performance OMAP 2 architecture, TI’s proven GSM/GPRS technology, and NTT DoCoMo’s established WCDMA technology.

Devices Powered by ACCESS' NetFront Surpasses 200 mn

ACCESS Co., Ltd., a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet access technologies, announced that the number of devices equipped with its NetFront family of browsers has surpassed 200 million deployments worldwide. The achievement of this milestone firmly establishes NetFront as the leading browser for the mobile and beyond-PC markets. NetFront is widely recognized as one of the most advanced mobile browsers in the world, but NetFront is also widely popular as a browser solution for set-top boxes, game consoles, digital televisions, car navigation systems, and dedicated Internet terminals.