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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.

SoftBank Mobile Announces New 3G Phones

SoftBank Mobile Announces New 3G Phones by Mobikyo KKSoftBank Mobile rounded out the Japanese operators spring handset announcement rush this week by announcing a new fleet of models – Flash site Here – with major bling factor. According to the companies announcement most models will be available by March which is traditionally the busiest handset replacement month of the year in Japan as the new academic and fiscal year begins on April 1st. Masayoshi Son did his best Steve Jobs impersonation, black turtle-neck and all, however there was no announcement related to the recent news from MacWorld.

Models of interest include the 911T by Toshiba, a candybar slider with a huge 3-inch screen running on high speed HSDPA has a 3.2-megapixel camera, 1GB of internal memory, 1Seg digital tv, it’s FeliCa m-commerce enabled and comes complete with a pair of Oakley Thumps which connect via bluetooth. Other new handset highlights include; the 812SH Pantone series by Sharp (pictured right) with 20 different colors to choose from, the 812T Kodomobile model designed especially for children and Nokia’s E-61 Communicator – labeled as X01NK – which has Japanese Kanji text input and comes Wi-Fi enabled.

There are three new phones from Samsung including the 708SC slider which claims the title for the worlds thinnest 3G handset at a mere 8.4mm thick and the 707SC Swarovski Crystal version which is a follow-up to the earlier 705SH model [.jpg image] which sold-out the day it was launched last fall.

There have been over 30 new handset models announced by the three main operators during the last week for content and application developers, industry wags and ultimately the marketplace at large to chew over.. whew! WWJ subscribers login for more comments, photos and a video-link to watch the actual presentation (70 minute runtime) from the press conference held in Shinagawa on Thursday.

Japan's Mobile Year in Review

It was the best of times, it was… well, it really was the best of times! Also, as the famous line from Dickens goes, it was the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness and the season of.. Mobile!

Looking back on 2006, it’s hard to decide which news from Japan’s mobile scene was the most spectacular. Vodafone pulled out, Softbank stood up, mobile number portability struck, a record number of new handsets hit the street and – as December winds down – Motorola and Samsung are shipping first foreign-made 3G units into Japan.

A ‘quick’ look at what caught WWJ’s attention in ’06 after the jump.

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.

DoCoMo Selects NEC for Super 3G Handsets

NEC announced that theywill develop equipment for Super 3G handsets, following a request for proposal from NTT DoCoMo, NEC plans to deliver commercial Super 3G mobile handsets in 2010. The Super 3G standard is expected to provide super fast downlink data rates of over 100Mbps and uplink data rates of over 50Mbps, low-latency data transmission and improved spectrum efficiency. Super 3G features highly advanced versions of high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) and high-speed uplink packet access (HSUPA), which are W-CDMA packet transmission technologies standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).

Wireless Watch Japan's Web Video Triple Play

Wireless Watch Japan’s Web Video Triple PlayIt’s been a fairly hectic six weeks for Japan’s mobile industry and therefore also for us here at WWJ. Starting with the Tokyo Game Show here in late September, followed in short order by CEATEC and DoCoMo’s new 903i-series launch — and combined with the MNP (mobile number portability) official launch on 24 October — it’s been crazy.

Your WWJ staff have also been deep into planning next week’s Mobile Intelligence Japan (MIJ) mission, due to start on Sunday afternoon and we have over 250 folks registered for our next Mobile Monday event at the Canadian embassy on Monday 13 November! Phew!

We know how much everyone enjoys watching our web video programs and so we’ve bundled a few together that were finally produced over the last little while. The Tokyo Game Show was, as always and then some, a super event this year, celebrating their 10th anniversary and was held at Makuhari Messe; WWJ saw previews of DoCoMo’s 903i “Mega Games” while KDDI was running a massive (mobile) multiplayer Bomberman exhibit and SoftBank Mobile stepped out if full force with a wide selection of games targeted at Sharp’s 905SH handset.

Also, we have added our video coverage from DoCoMo’s new 903i-series launch, which introduced a whopping 14 new handsets complete with some interesting 3G data service upgrades as well.

Finally, DoubleClick Japan introduced their “Mobile MK” software and were kind enough to show us a full demo. — Yoroshiku!

3G FOMA Subscribers Top 30 Million

NTT DoCoMo has just announced that the number of subscribers to their 3G FOMA service surpassed the 30 million mark on November 4, 2006. According to the statement, DoCoMo plans to increase the number of FOMA base stations by 1.5 times year on year by the end of the fiscal year ending March 2007 and aims to expand the coverage area for HSDPA 3.5G, which provides significantly faster speed than the current W-CDMA based data transmission, while developing more new compatible handset models.

eMobile Gearing Up for Service Launch

eMobile has introduced its new corporate logo along with a deployment schedule to commence mobile operations in March 2007. The company was allocated spectrum in the 1.7-GHz band and will initally offer services, only via HSDPA data cards, in major population areas of Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo. Their plan calls for agressive network infrastructure development, at an estimated $2 bn, and providing embedded smartphone devices by fiscal 2008.

Nortel and Qualcomm Trial HSUPA

Option’s announced that they have successfully completed the industry’s first demonstration of live HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) data card calls reaching a wireless uplink transmission rate of 1.3 Mbps and a wireless downlink of 2.7 Mbps at application level. A laptop fitted with an Option HSUPA data card (category 3 in uplink, cat 6 in downlink) based on QUALCOMM Mobile Station Modem MSM7200 chipset and commercial HSDPA/HSUPA network equipment from Nortel were used to achieve the new record data speeds. Commercial availability of “HSUPA-Ready” and full HSUPA products from Option are planned for the first half of 2007.

NTT DoCoMo Announces New 3G, HSDPA Phones

NTT DoCoMo Announces New 3G, HSDPA PhonesNTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries today announced 14 new 3G FOMA handsets, including the 903i-series, the ‘SIMPURE’ series and N902iL. All 11 new 903i handsets provide a wide range of entertainment functions, said the company. They are equipped for DoCoMo’s Chaku-Uta Full full-track music-downloading service. Five models can play tracks transferred from PCs that were used to download music from sites such as Napster Japan, which offers unlimited access to approximately 1.5 million downloadable tracks for a flat rate. HSDPA-capable models work with the Music Channel service, which enables up to two music programs to be downloaded automatically during the night, and the expanded i-motion video clip for downloading up to 10MB files. All models are compatible with Mega i-appli rich applications, and some are also equipped for “One-segment” digital terrestrial broadcasting.

The new 903i-series offer a number of improved conveniences for daily life. They have IC cards with triple the storage capacity of conventional models, and they come preinstalled with software required to use DoCoMo’s DCMX mobile credit card on DoCoMo’s iD platform. Six 903i models are equipped for the Keitai-Osagashi Service, a GPS service that enables a misplaced handset to be located with a PC.