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Vodafone Unveils First TV/ Radio Mobile Phone

Vodafone strikes back! Those of you who have read this week’s Viewpoint will know that Toshiba is running silent and deep on its digital TV tuner mobile phones…but meantime they’ve come up with Japan’s first TV/ Radio phone for…Vodafone! Wow! The V401T beats NEC’s groundbreaking V601N, Japan’s first TV mobile phone, in several important areas. First; the 2.2 inch screen is upgraded to QVGA; second, the V401T is also capable of 12 minutes of program recording time; and third of course, there is the radio…They’ve actually gone and done it. Cool!!!… And now the caveats…

Mobile TV Solution Coming?

On top of launching full-scale digital-satellite-to-mobile-terminal broadcasting services on July 1, Mobile Broadcasting Corp. (MBCO) and its main technology backer Toshiba Corp. are making a strong, and they believe attractive, push to generate digital broadcasting revenue streams for Japan’s wireless carriers in April 2006 when DoCoMo, KDDI, and perhaps Vodafone K.K. will unleash mobiles with digital TV tuners on them. Talking to Shigekazu Hori, vice president and general manger of Toshiba Corp.’s Network Services & Contents Control Center last week, the planets could finally be aligning for a tailor-made revenue model that will finally convince Japan’s carriers to equip mobile phones with television. And, of course, as mentioned by DoCoMo’s Keiji Tachikawa last week, the fact that MPEG-4 standards have been settled and H.264 is coming doesn’t hurt either.

DoCoMo's New 3G Service Model

DoCoMo's New 3G Service ModelOn March 24, NTT DoCoMo president Keiji Tachikawa held his routine monthly press briefing and, with what is becoming a regular feature of his recent speeches, pounded the drum once more about the “Paradigm Shift” DoCoMo plans for its services from fiscal 2004 onwards. In a nutshell, this means introducing flat rates for packet data on June 1st, but, “We did not want to open up the window to all customers from day one,” he told reporters. Aided by a flashy Powerpoint presentation, Dr. Tachikawa also announced new anti-spam and anti-virus measures that will be implemented over the next few months. Full Program Run-time 20:25

A Linux ''Ecosystem'' for Cell Phones?

Rather than be held prisoner to any company’s proprietary software, cellular service providers (which distribute most phones) are beginning to ask specifically for Linux-based handsets, says Michael Sudol, general manager of the group at Motorola PCS that’s focused on Linux. So in January, Motorola released its second Linux-based phone for Asia.

SEVEN Announces Support for BREW Based Handsets in Japan on KDDI

SEVEN Networks, Inc. announced today that the company’s mobile email software is now shipping on BREW-based handsets in the Japanese market. SEVEN’s software provides secure, real-time access to Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange, IMAP4 and POP3 email, calendar, personal contacts, corporate directories, network drives and desktop documents. Japan’s second largest mobile operator, KDDI Corp., is the first to launch SEVEN-enabled email services on BREW-based handsets.

DoCoMo Partially Denies Hutchinson 3UK Pullout

NTT DoCoMo has denied media reports here that it is pulling out its stake in Hutchinson 3G UK Holdings Ltd. after Hutchinson failed to roll out i-mode. In a statement today, DoCoMo said it “has made no decision about ending its investment in Hutchison 3G UK Holdings Limited,” but stopped short of fully denying local reports that it was pulling the plug on its July 2000-acquired 20% interest in Hutchison 3GUK for about 186 billion yen, the book value of which has withered to under 40 billion yen as the joint venture struggled to launch its 3G service.