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KDDI #1 Again for Subs; Where's W-CDMA?

With the latest Telecommunications Carriers Association (TCA) figures in for January, the success of DoCoMo’s new 900i series looks like the best hope for the company to overturn four months of KDDI dominance in picking up subscribers. TCA figures for Jan. 31 2004 indicate that KDDI again proved overwhelmingly popular, with the company picking up 500,100 CDMA 2001x subscribers (against a loss of 268,100 CDMAOne subs) against FOMA’s 132,600 increase and Vodafone’s 11,100 W-CDMA subs.

New DoCoMo 3G Handset Hits the Street: Fujitsu F900i

New DoCoMo 3G Handset Hits the Street: Fujitsu F900iLast December, DoCoMo unveiled its new 900i series phones in a splashy press conference at Tokyo’s Imperial hotel, and today, Friday Feb. 6, the first of that series, the Fujitsu F900i, hit the shops. The 900is, which Takeshi Natsuno calls “The best 3G phones in the world,” are ace when compared with the original FOMA phones. The 900is have 3X standby time (480 hours) and weigh 20% less than FOMA’s first models. In other words, the 900is are as good as DoCoMo’s 2G PDC terminals! The new Symbian OS based Fujitsu distinguishes itself with a finger print sensor and, like the other 900i models, a huge (100k) flash bucket. As you sit back and enjoy this video preview to our upcoming program of that launch event, note that DoCoMo is not saying when the other fab 4 are coming out.. yet. Full Program Run-time 2:55

FeliCa Networks Sets Up Shop

As mentioned in previous stories and our recent video report, Sony and DoCoMo have been busy setting up FeliCa Networks Inc. to develop the companies’ mobile FeliCa IC that will, we think, lead to the massive expansion of the mobile phone as a do-all contactless payment device. Sony announced today that it has firmed up the FeliCa Networks company organization with Takeshi Natsuno (“Mr. i-mode”) as one of the directors.

Potential and Pitfalls for Playboy on 3G

Potential and Pitfalls for Playboy on 3G“We know what kind of contents sell, we know what the customers want and we can create a great user experience for the users on the networks,” says Playboy.com’s VP of Global Licensing, Markus Grindel, talking to Wireless Watch Japan in Part 2 of our exclusive video coverage from the 3G Mobile Forum 2004. With adult content helping kick-start and then drive the VHS and DVD revolutions, estimates of a $4-7 billion market for this content category in the wireless space in 2006 don’t seem far-fetched at all. But a number of roadblocks, including carrier technologies, billing and DRM pose significant hurdles as well. “Right now its very hard for me to determine if someone receives an image from us if that image is being sent to someone else. How old is that person.. I don’t know, and that’s a key factor to figure out,” says Grindel. Full Program Run-time 12:47

Not Selling Sex on the Japanese Wireless Internet

We finally filmed the introduction to our latest video program – outside an establishment called “Sexual Harassment Corporation” – one of four or five adult industry vendors, including a brothel and a “Love Hotel” in a side street off the main drag, where prostitutes jump out and routinely proposition drunk salarimen (and the happily married author). There isn’t a station on the Yamanote line that isn’t crowded by similar scenes, and there there’s hardly a carriage on the JR line that doesn’t have, shall we say, full-blown advertisements for adult mags and manga that show Japanese girls seemingly as young as 14 flirting and flaunting themselves. Let’s face it, sex sells in Japan. Which brings us to wonder why Playboy.com is being blocked from the official Mobinet space.

Breaking Windows, DoCoMo Axes Mobimagic

If ever there was proof how far DoCoMo has lifted up its skirt and fled the Microsoft camp for Symbian and perhaps a Linux chaser, here’s the pudding; 39 months after Keiji Tachikawa and Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer stood on a platform together and promised to “agressively” promote MS’ microbrowser technology and CE OS on DoCoMo Cellies, DoCoMo has finally cut the cord and axed its Mobimagic subsidiary, the company supposed to have us grappling with Windows on our handsets as well as our PCs