Foreseeing that demand for 3G phones will get on track in Europe and North America this year, sparking competition with rivals in Japan, Samsung and LG are turning up the heat to market their new 3G models to customers in these regions. Mobile phone makers in Japan such as NEC, Panasonic, Sharp and Sanyo, which have concentrated on supplying W-CDMA phones to carriers in Japan, are also reportedly poised to focus more on global markets this year.
Hong Kong mobile network operator SmarTone Telecommunications Holdings said it has signed an exclusive agreement with Japan’s Sanyo Electric to develop 3G handsets for Hong Kong customers. The first Sanyo 3G handset exclusive to SmarTone, SX813, will be available in early 2005, but the two companies will introduce more models in 2005, said Sanyo Electric Senior Officer Takenori Ugari. SmarTone and Sanyo didn’t reveal the price nor the number of handsets to be sold under their agreement.
Today SEVEN announced it is powering NTT DoCoMo’s Business mopera Access Simple — a mobile groupware service that enables secure remote access to email, calendar, contacts, and documents via i-mode phones. Available today from NTT DoCoMo’s direct business sales force and NTT DoCoMo’s retail stores throughout Japan, Business mopera Access Simple is a tier-one i-mode service and is a core “i-mode for Business Solutions” offering. NEC and SEVEN partnered to develop Business mopera Access Simple; it is based on SEVEN’s “behind-the-firewall” Server Edition software.
As if Japanese phones weren’t mobese enough, KDDI is first out of the gate with music distribution for cell phones — allowing multi-slackers to download artists’ songs in their entirety right to the handset. Launching this month, users of EZ Chaku Uta Full (Chaku – download, uta – song, full – in its entirety, get it?) will have access to 10,000 songs from six web sites covering everything from pop princess Hilary Duff to indie artists. Playlist and music sites are set to expand over the coming year. The company also plans to enable downloads through their ‘NOW On Air’ FM radio subscription service, though a start date has not yet been set. Content fee per song should average around 315 yen and transmission speed will hit a maximum of 2.4 Mbps under KDDI’s ‘Double Flat’ fixed packet charge service.
US carrier Sprint has started offering the new Sanyo MM-7400 [.jpg image] as part of a new breed of phones with the ability to stream video over the Sprint network. The streaming video service offers a “basic cable” package for mobile handsets which includes a variety of content from NBC Universal, FOX Sports, ABC News Now, Discovery Channel, The Weather Channel, Comedy Time, and more. Other premium channels are also available, but you’ll have to shell out extra for them.
ACCESS, a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet access technologies, today announced the availability of NetFront v3.2 for the Nokia 6670 smartphone and other Series 60 smartphones. NetFront v3.2 for Nokia Series 60, the latest version of the world’s most widely deployed and actively used embedded browser, provides an optimum browser solution for Series 60 mobile professionals. NetFront v3.2 for Nokia Series 60 will be available as a preinstalled application on the MMC (MultiMedia Card) included with the new Nokia 6670 phone and will also be available from Nokia Software Market (www.softwaremarket.nokia.com) and Handango (www.handango.com) later this month.
The 3G CDMA award winners were announced in Miami last night and several Japanese companies are coming home with some shiny hardware. KDDI for International Leadership; winning top share of net subscriber increase in the Japanese market and its leadership in 3G in Japan, as well as for its launch of 1xEV-DO services, branded as WIN. Sanyo Electric won the Subscriber Technology Innovation award for their innovative Infobar handset design.
The CDMA Development Group today announced the winners of the 3G CDMA Industry Achievement Awards, presented yesterday during the CDMA Americas Congress, taking place this week at the Miami Beach Convention Center. Both companies and individuals were recognized for excellence in deploying CDMA2000. The awards were presented by Perry LaForge, executive director of the CDG, and Gerry Flynn, vice president, industry relations of the CDG and director, advanced technology strategy/standards for Verizon Wireless.
In his 14 September WWJ Viewpoint, Philip Sugai raised some valid criticisms of the new TV cell phones and points to both technological and end-user behavior limitations that he believes doom TV phones to “DOA” status. Of these, the behavioral problems appear to be the most difficult to overcome. These criticisms, however, seriously underestimate both the technological developments that the devices will undergo in the next 18-24 months as well as the imagination and creativity that Japan’s end-users and broadcasters will apply to receiving and delivering, respectively, useful content via mobile TV (and FM radio).
Part 2 of a two-part series. Previously: MobileTV: Hype or Reality?, by Professor Philip Sugai.)
ACCESS Co., Ltd., a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet access technologies, today announced the immediate availability of its new i-mode Global Profile, an integrated software solution that is optimized for the i-mode services deployed NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode alliance partners. i-mode Global Profile is a new profile that forms part of ACCESS’ NetFront Mobile Client Suite. i-mode Global Profile includes ACCESS’ market-leading NetFront technology as well as a Multi-Media Messaging Client, Java Virtual Machine (JVM), and an SSL encryption module. All technologies comprising i-mode Global Profile were developed by ACCESS and offer tight integration and functionality optimized specifically for i-mode.
