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Multimedia Cellys: FM Keitai Rocks!

The “FM Keitai,” the most successful FM radio cell phone on planet Earth, is rocking the airwaves in Tokyo. There are over 450,000 users and DJs and announcers are voicing special messages intended just for phone listeners: “Please press the ‘Star’ button to get more information on product X.” Audio-loving mobilers can also download a digital clip of the currently playing song, thanks to BREW. It’s a media marketing dream come true, and it’s only the beginning. Full program run-time: 3:58

Portable Reportable audio updates are short, 3- to 5-minute news items in MP3 format. You can listen via PC or download and copy to your portable player for tomorrow morning’s commute. — Eds.

Japan Prepares to Export 3G Phones

Originally published as a guest column in Fierce Wireless, 9 June – Ed.
If 2001-2003 has been Phase 1 of Japan’s 3G era (all three major carriers launched W-CDMA or CDMA 2000 networks in this period), then 2004 is definitely shaping up to be Phase 2 — and the difference is that now Japan 3G is moving overseas. The assault is being led in part by Japan’s keitai makers who, under NTT DoCoMo’s lash, have invested heavily in sophisticated new terminals and are now looking to markets further afield in order to generate additional ROI.

KDDI Announces Office Wise Mobile Extension for Corporate and PBX Networks

KDDI has announced “Office Wise”, a new au based service designed to provide an inexpensive mobile and seamless PBX call-service alternative for corporate clients in their local office buildings and plant areas. “Office Wise”, the first service of its kind in the industry, will launch on November 30, 2004, in the Tokyo area, with rapid expansion to the Osaka and Nagoya areas. Office Wise customers use the local area wireless call service by simply installing the required Office Wise equipment at the business site and pre-registering a local area number (up to 11 digits) for use with their au mobile phone units. In addition to calls between registered mobile phones, users can make calls to the extension lines of existing PBX networks by simply adding the “*55” prefix to the extension line number being called.

ACCESS Announces First Full-Featured Browser for QUALCOMM'S BREW

ACCESS, a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet access technologies, today announced that its NetFront v3.0 microbrowser is now available for QUALCOMM’s BREW(R) solution. With NetFront for BREW, mobile operators and handset manufacturers will have access to the some of the most advanced mobile browsing technology in the world. The company announced the product at the BREW 2004 Developers Conference being held June 7-9 in San Diego, California.

Digital Broadcast to Mobile Phones

Satellite Broadcast to Mobile PhonesKDDI R&D Laboratories have jointly developed a mobile-phone terminal that receives digital terrestrial TV broadcasts with interactive services in conjunction with NHK Science and Technical Research Labs. The two companies are the first in Japan to develop such a product in advance of digital TV broadcasting aimed at mobile terminals, which is due to commence in fiscal 2005. We visited NHK’s open house for a peek at the prototype, a modified Hitachi W11H 3G handset. The demonstration allowed users to watch a newscast and scroll through a menu of relevant links to view different segments, like weather forecasts or sports highlights. Full Program Run-time 4:26, also available in Real Player and QT formats.

Yes, KDDI 3G Really Does Rock

I received a query from a long-time, astute, tech industry watcher last week after sending out the WWJ newsletter. I say “astute” not only because he’s a long-time WWJ fan, but also because he works as a high-level consultant in several fields, including auto electronics, software development, and marketing. His query focused on my comments that Vodafone’s 3G subscriber base was still tiny — with 151,400 compared to 3.58 mn and 13.99 mn at DoCoMo and KDDI, respectively, as of April 30. My numbers came direct from the Telecommunications Carriers Association (TCA) website, and he asked, somewhat skeptically, if these numbers were correct. I replied that they were and said that…