Alcatel-Lucent announced it has been selected by Softbank Mobile to supply a mobile backhaul solution to help the operator meet rapidly increasing subscriber demand for 3G services on Softbank’s mobile network. The solution includes Alcatel-Lucent’s 7670 Routing Switch Platform and the 5620 Network Management platform.
Only those who have been totally blocked-out from all media sources over the last year would wonder what an iPhone is as the so-called “Jesus Phone” has been in the mainstream headlines since even before it was officially unveiled in January. However, for a combination of reasons, there has only been mild speculation about when – or indeed how – it would become available in the Japanese market. Citing the initial lack of 3G capability, not too mention an ‘unusual’ operator revenue share arrangement, the story so far has centered around deployments in the US and Europe. Full skinny after the jump!
The announcement finally hit the web this week, possibly one of the worst kept secrets in recent times, that SoftBank and Disney have come to terms on rolling out the long-awaited Mickey Mouse MVNO in Japan. An obvious evolution, often speculated during the Vodafone years, for WDIG who launched on i-mode in 2000 and claim over 3M subscribers to their various official content offerings. While Google has dozens of posts about the ‘news’.. Wireless Watch Japan may have a nice little extra scoop!
The TCA just announced results for October confirming that SoftBank Mobile has won the most net subscribers for sixth consecutive months. Since the introduction of their so-called White Plan, which includes flat-rate voice calling within their network, the company has continued to grow it’s third place market share. According to the official numbers for October 2006, when SoftBank Mobile re-launched the troubled Vodafone KK operations, they have gained almost 2M new customers.
As predicted, SoftBank Mobile announced their latest handset line-up for the upcoming “sales battle” of the winter 2007 season. The company has new 10 models on offer – 7 coming from Sharp alone – which will begin rolling out by the middle of November through the end of December. They have a dedicated Flash site Here and we’ve posted a few details with images after the jump.
The Mobile Contents Forum (MCF) is gearing up for the Mobidec 2007 conference again this year to be held on 27 November at the swanky Meguro Gajoen in Tokyo. Their stated focus topics for the popular annual industry event include; SEM, SEO, advertising, user-generated content, m-commerce and digital tv broadcasting for mobile. We’ve always enjoyed this gathering in years past and look forward to attending again in November!
The fall and winter 2007 handset season is officially upon us now with au announcing their new series of models will hit the dori by middle of November. The latest line-up also claims one ‘world first’ with a co-op between Samsung and Hitachi, on the W53H – Wooo, touting a 2.8 inch QVGA organic EL display targeting users hooked on 1Seg digital-tv. More details with pics and links after the jump.
US-based ScanR will provide their new service to KDDI customers via the EZWeb official contents portal as of October 4th 2007, press release [in Japanese] Here. “ScanR” creates PDF files of documents and business cards from user-generated cameraphone images, and stores those files online to deliver via FAX or e-mail. The service, which can also automatically transcode business card information into file data to be compiled onto the address book of your mobile phone, is on display in KDDI’s booth at CEATEC this week.
Yet another successful event for in the massive Makuhari Messe convention center saw almost 200,000 pass through the gates for TGS 2007. Aaaah.. the chaos, the crowds, the girls games.. how could we resist! A sunny Saturday afternoon brought out the kids – for family day – and plenty of Cosplay actors were swarming between show halls to pose down for the camera’s. But the real action, coming from every major player in the gaming world, was inside. WWJ has been on-hand for this event pretty much every year since 2002, with the first-to-web video of the Sony PSP in 2004, and this time out was perhaps the most impressive yet.
The obvious evolution on display was without a doubt the next gen. motion-sensor enabled Mega Games at the DoCoMo booth. While KDDI rolled-out the heavy armor with Metal Gear Solid and BioHazzard for mobile RPG products, the display which seems to have grabbed the most attention was from SoftBank Mobile. Thanks to Darth and the Tokyo StormTroopers, who un-leashed the new Star Wars PodRacer game, we were hooked from Go!
Softbank Corp. is in the final stage of talks with access service provider Nifty Corp., and other firms, on a plan to set up a new joint company in order to apply for a 2.5GHz spectrum license. Other possible partners are broadband service provider eAccess Ltd. and Internet access providers So-net Entertainment Corp., NEC Biglobe Ltd and FreeBit Co., according to this report on EE Times.
