kyocera
kyocera

kyocera

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.

Kyocera's Opera Browser Cell Phone

DDI Pocket has introduced this new AH-K3001V handset by Kyocera, the “AirH” terminal has a 2.2 inch QVGA TFT screen that displays 260,000 colors, with a 1.1 mega-pixel camera onboard. All pretty much standard, but it also features an Opera browser which enables POP3 and SMTP e-mail functions, and even has a mini-B type USB terminal that will connect with your PC.

Opera Browser for Japan Wireless

Kyocera has unveiled the AH-K3001V handset [image] for the Japanese market. It’s the first handset available in Japan that uses the Opera browser to access the Internet. The phone is fully Opera-branded, including an Opera-branded softkey that brings users online for Web surfing. The AH-K3001V will be available to DDI Pocket AirH” subscribers by mid-May.

iBurst Officially Launches in Sydney

Personal Broadband Australia (PBA) announced that its eagerly anticipated iBurst 1 Megabit per second wireless service has been officially launched. PBA’s iBurst service is Australia’s first mobile broadband network. Invited guests attended the launch and included representatives from shareholding companies ArrayComm Inc, Mitsubishi Corporation Japan, Kyocera Corporation Japan and Mitsubishi Australia. See recent WWJ video interview with Dr. Martin Cooper about this project.

CEATEC Japan 2003: The Future of Wireless

CEATEC Japan 2003: The Future of WirelessThe Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC) is Asia’s premiere trade show for information technology and electronics sectors, including the fields of imaging, information and communications. This event brings together the complete spectrum of new technologies with a total of 505 companies and organizations, including almost every major Japanese electronics and communications company, 170 exhibitors from 16 counties and regions worldwide, exhibited in 2,460 booths. We visited KDDI to take a closer look at their prototype Sanyo Digital TV phone, talked to the Kyocera folks about the upcoming convergence of GSM and CDMA and interviewed DoCoMo about their IT-House service offering coming soon for 3G FOMA handsets. Full Program Run-time 20:39

KDDI WINs With Mobile Flat Rate; and Half-Price Calls to Mom

They’ve gone and done it now! KDDI’s just announced a double whammy; on November 28, the company will offer 3G’s first flat-rate packet services with all you can surf for 4,200 yen (about $37) on the souped-up, 2.4-Mbps (max) EV-DO version of CDMA 1X that KDDI has branded “WIN” (We Innovate the Next) – presumably to beat up on DoCoMo’s W-CDMA-based FOMA. Then, today, it said it was halving the cost of calls from KDDI Au mobile subscribers to KDDI ADSL/ IP home phones on the Dion Service. The knives are out! With three new service innovations, two new terminals, and a data card, the company appears to be following what Kenshi Tazaki, vice president and team manager of Gartner Research Japan, calls a “high risk strategy” (think of all those potential lost packet charges!). Will Big D respond in kind just as it was hoping to glean megabucks from FOMA users? “It’s a very aggressive shot at DoCoMo and stakes out a clear position by KDDI in the mobile market,” says Tazaki.