KDDI has announced it’s plan to offer a bundled e-mail service, available on both PC and mobile, powered by Googles Gmail platform. The free service, branded “AU One Mail”, is available only to the companies CDMA 1X WIN customers and will provide up to 2GB of storage when it debuts in late September. KDDI introduced the Google search feature for its EZWeb mobile web service in July ’06.
According to Bloomberg, KDDI announced their first-quarter profit rose 9 percent with net income climbing to 82.5 billion yen ($682 million), or 18,483 yen a share, in the three months ended June 30, from 75.6 billion yen, or 17,296 yen, a year earlier. Operating profit, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, climbed 16 percent to 140.9 billion yen.
SoftBank announced they have received a permit from the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications to run femtocell trials. The experiment, using 2GHz belt, will be conducted in partnership with ip.access, Motorola, Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson Japan, Samsung, Sonas, Ubiquisys and NEC. Femtocell is a micro cellular phone base station that can be set it up in the home or office and offer mobile handsets voice services via existing fixed-line ADSL connections.
KDDI has announced that the company reached an agreement with Microsoft to jointly develop and provide applications using a Software as a Service (SaaS) delivery model for corporate users. The companies will also create an ecosystem to provide extensive support to independent software vendor (ISV) partners and spur the development of new service-enabled applications to drive momentum for new SaaS applications. The service will allow customers to access their data on a PC in the office or with a mobile phone when they are on the go.
Telcordia Technologies announced that it has enabled KDDI America, Inc. to launch a MVNO that offers prepaid services and tariffs targeted to Japanese communities in the United States. KDDI America will be relying on the Telcordia Hosted Solution for MVNOs, which offers pre-paid and post-paid wireless services without having to own or manage a network. KDDI America will specifically be providing a real-time pre-paid service that includes flexible rates on calls to and from Japan.
According to this article via the Yomiuri Shimbun, airlines are growing increasingly concerned about children bringing cell phones onto planes, as they could interfere with navigation systems. Airlines are especially concerned about the latest children’s cell phones, which contain a built-in crime prevention function that automatically restarts the phone if it is switched off. [WWJ demo video Here]
