The gloves came off on Friday in the war for Japan’s 94 million mobile customers, as the chief executive of NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s biggest mobile company, said he was “very frustrated and mad and upset” at the tactics of Softbank, its smaller rival.
Japanese mobile phone carrier Softbank Mobile Corp., which slashed its prices last week to undercut rivals, said it had to stop taking new applications Sunday because it was flooded by new customers wanting to switch to its service. Softbank stopped accepting new customers shortly after noon Sunday when its computer system couldn’t handle the load, the company said in a news release. It apologized to customers and promised to resume taking switch-over business when it readies the system for increased volume.
Softbank announced it will offer new price plans – lower than DoCoMo and KDDI by at least 200 yen – on the eve of Japan’s Mobile Number Portability launch. Softbank introduced 18 new subscription plans including three packages which allow subscribers to call and message for free at certain times of the day. A recent survey by the Nikkei reported that up to 25 percent of SoftBank customers may switch carriers under the new MNP rule while 19 percent of DoCoMo’s and only 8 percent of KDDI’s users said they may change carriers after number portability.
Last week, Tokyo’s annual CEATEC show (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) was once again a showcase for some of the coolest mobile technology on Planet Earth. Today’s video round-up features audio QR, Fujitsu’s ‘UB Wall‘ – an ultra-high-tech, one-to-one customized video advertising display – and FP codes, and – not to be missed – NTT DoCoMo’s 3G mobile-based ‘Drunk Driver’ detector, apparently in high demand by bus companies and trucking firms.
Organizers said that the consumer electronics event drew 550,732 during the public days, 4-7 October, while WWJ ducked in out of the torrential rain during the press & industry day on 3 October, when the crowds weren’t quite as waku (wild).
WWJ thinks the FP codes (essentially, invisible barcodes) and audio QR technology stands a pretty good chance of fast adoption, given the masses of rabid advertising agencies out there trying to capitalize on the growing popularity of (a) camera phones that grab info via QR code and (b) digital broadcasting. An audio QR code is simply broadcast as metadata in a digital audio signal, such that the browser displays text, a clickable URL or other advertising message while you listen to a radio or tv program on a suitably enabled mobile phone. But for sheer outdoor-advertising-meets-mobile marketing genius, the UB Wall can’t be beat!
SoftBank Mobile and HTC Corp. held a press conference at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo today to annouce 14 October as roll-out date for HTC’s X01HT smartphone which is compatible with the carrier’s new high-speed HSDPA 3.5G network. SoftBank also confirmed their new dual-flat-rate pricing plan offer of unlimited data usage for 9,800jpy per month with a limited time trial offer of 5,700jpy until January 2007. We have video here of the same unit at DoCoMo’s booth during the Wireless Japan 2006 trade show in July.
SoftBank Mobile have just issued a press release [.PDF in Japanese] announcing that four of their recently unveiled handsets – the 910T, 810SH, 811SH and 705P – will commence sales nationwide on Saturday, 7 October. The update has not been posted on their new website as of this moment, however we do look forward to seeing them come up to speed there as the old vodafone.jp site now resolves to softbankmobile.co.jp.
