Japan is six months away from an exciting new multimedia mobile experience courtesyof satellite broadcasting. If this sounds like a curtain raising, rewritten press release circa 1996 previewing the impending launch of the then PerfecTV! digital satellitebroadcasting service, well there could be a parallel or two about the storywe predict will unfold with Mobile Broadcasting Corporation’s attempts,starting next spring, to beam.
Japan’s mobile phone giant NTT DoCoMo has reported a quarterly profit, helped by strong growth at its 3G service and solid per-user revenues, with no big overseas losses this time. DoCoMo earned 196.82 billion yen (US$1.64b) in group net profit in the first quarter to June 30 on sales of 1.25 trillion yen.
NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries announced today that they will begin marketing the P505i on August 8, 2003. At a trim 19.9 mm when folded, the new model is the slimmest in the 505i series of enhanced 2G handsets.
Ten years ago, the cell phone was a luxury item used by businessmen. Now just about everybody in Japan has a ‘keitai,’ and the ubiquitous little devices have transformed interpersonal communications. This essay by the inventor of the Personal Handyphone offers a look back over the brief history of the cell phone.
Shares of KDDI Corp., Japan’s second- largest mobile-phone operator, rose 2.4 percent after the company said users are spending more on services such as high-speed access to the Internet and video clip services. KDDI yesterday said users spent an average of 36 percent more each month in the April to June period as they sent text messages, surfed the Internet and viewed video clips.
Tim Harrison’s speech was the highlight of Wireless Japan 2003 for many — an oasis of information in an otherwise dreary lineup of pat speeches by DoCoMo’s Tachikawa and KDDI’s Onodera. Harrison talked eloquently about the guiding principles that have let V-Live grow to 1.5 million, the lessons learned from Japan, and how their service is different from the domestically brilliant, and so far internationally dismal, performance of various i-modes.
