Sanyo Electric Co, Ltd unveiled an organic electroluminescent (EL) panel with QVGA resolution at CEATEC Japan 2003. The 2.5-inch prototype panel is the most precise of all the organic EL panels that Sanyo has developed so far for mobile phones. The prototype panel has a brightness of 150cd/2. The organic EL layer is a white light-emitting low-polymer material, used in combination with a color filter.
The prime feature of the ubiquitous society is being able to access networks anywhere, anytime, and one of the leading roles in this society is being played by cellular telephones, which let users remotely control elements of lifestyle and entertainment, and link directly with people around the world through video and data communications. At CEATEC JAPAN 2003, visitors are experiencing the developing world of the cellular telephone.
With former J-Phone’s 3G rollout stalled and, it seems, little left in the goodies barrel to counter DoCoMo’s sleek summer-six 2G 505i rollout, and swelling 3G subscriber figures from both its rivals here in Japan, J-Phone needed to distract press attention from the company’s terrible summer. Last week, Darryl E. Green just did that. There was a strong sense of DeJaVu at WWJ when Green, eschewing fowl or game, pulled the NEC ‘tellycelly’ out of his corporate top hat at October 1’s inaugural Vodafone KK press conference. Remember Sha-mail? How fleet-footed J-Phone sidestepped DoCoMo and stole the hearts, or at least the images, of 10 million teenagers with cool keitai camera phones? It looks like the rebranded J-Phone-cum-Vodafone KK combo is going to leapfrog DoCoMo and KDDI again with Japan’s first TV-Phone this December. And, beyond that, Vodafone KK has a lot more up its wide sleeves with six new 3G phones, new business billing plans and bargain rates to fight back.
In an effective snub to top handset maker Nokia, the Financial Times reported that Vodafone was negotiating exclusive deals with Japan’s Sanyo and Samsung of South Korea for its new range of upgraded Vodafone Live! multimedia phones. ‘Vodafone is trialling a number of handsets to support its 3G service, which will be available before March 2004,’ the group stated. ‘Vodafone cannot confirm at this stage which manufacturers will be exclusive providers for Vodafone’s 3G services.’
Talking to an analyst friend today, we came across the question, how many packets are there in a typical 10-minute video clip encoded for a 3G phone? We asked ourselves this question because, just now, the local press in Japan has caught up with DoCoMo’s plans to roll out HSDPA in late 2004, about a month after WWJ reported on it..!!
Tim Harrison’s speech was the highlight of Wireless Japan 2003 for many — an oasis of information in an otherwise dreary lineup of pat speeches by DoCoMo’s Tachikawa and KDDI’s Onodera. Harrison talked eloquently about the guiding principles that have let V-Live grow to 1.5 million, the lessons learned from Japan, and how their service is different from the domestically brilliant, and so far internationally dismal, performance of various i-modes.
Japan’s wireless broadband networks are rapidly accelerating with the development of cutting-edge technologies and Wireless Japan 2003 is the place to see it all. We’ve put together quite a package from this year’s show, including an on-camera interview with Vodafone Global Content Services’ Tim Harrison on his view on how V-Live is different from i-mode. We grabbed shots of Sanyo’s OLED 3G concept-model handsets and KDDI Labs’ new TV-Mobile unit; and caught up with Gartner Japan’s Mitsuyama-san who gave us her take on this year’s conference. Full Program Run-time 15:35
If any of you begin to note a slightly limey tone to future Viewpoints, it’s because the WWJ team has a new member, moi – Paul Kallender, as Tokyo correspondent. Take a look at my my bio. below and you will see that I am fully capable of deploying my creative weapons of article construction well within 45 minutes! I’ll be filing weekly with my take on the trends animating Japan’s mobile biz, as well as offering insight you can’t get from our competitors -most of whom either don’t live in Japan or are not actually independent journalists. I can’t follow in ex-editor-in-chief Daniel Scuka’s footsteps (partly because he’s in Germany and I’m in Japan), but I do hope you’ll bear with meas I attempt in my own way to “rip the faceplate” off Japan’s wireless industry. Given my Aikido background, I will be doing my best to at least throw some of the PR pap journalists have to rewrite into the digital dustbin of history. In short, come to WWJ for the stuff you can’t get elsewhere.
In the US, data speeds rock: “With my Sprint PCS service I’ve had long downloads with speeds of 59 to 84.4 kbps. In a video test I had a burst of up to 104 kbps.” But is culture significant? “People in the United States have less trouble talking to each other than do people in Japan – many teenagers here actually prefer sending mail to talking, not only because it’s cheaper, but because it’s easier for them to say what they want to say.”
KDDI Corp. and Okinawa Cellular recently announced plans to launch five new handsets from the end of May increasing their new lineup of 3G mobile phones (CDMA 2000 1x), a format that enables high-speed data transmission of up to 144 kbps. All the new phones are Movie Mail-compatible, a function that allows users to shoot and send seamless movies. The new handsets scheduled for launch are the A5401CA manufactured by Casio, the A5402S produced by Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, the A5306ST and A1303SA both made by Sanyo, and the A5303H II manufactured by Hitachi.
