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3G FOMA Subscribers Top 30 Million

NTT DoCoMo has just announced that the number of subscribers to their 3G FOMA service surpassed the 30 million mark on November 4, 2006. According to the statement, DoCoMo plans to increase the number of FOMA base stations by 1.5 times year on year by the end of the fiscal year ending March 2007 and aims to expand the coverage area for HSDPA 3.5G, which provides significantly faster speed than the current W-CDMA based data transmission, while developing more new compatible handset models.

Renesas Ships Sample SH-Mobile G2 Chips

Renesas Technology Corp. today announced that it has begun shipping samples of the SH-Mobile G2, a single-chip LSI for dual-mode HSDPA/W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE mobile phones. The LSI was jointly developed with NTT DoCoMo, Inc., Fujitsu Limited, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, and Sharp Corporation, and evaluation samples have been shipped to these handset manufacturers since the end of September 2006. Renesas plans to begin volume production of the SH-Mobile G2 in the third quarter of 2007 and will offer the W-CDMA mobile phone platform worldwide to W-CDMA and FOMA handsets.

SoftBank Mobile Comes Out Swinging

WWJ Editors, 28 September 2006
SoftBank Mobile Comes Out Swinging by Mobikyo KKThe long summer silence from SoftBank on the rebranding of Vodafone K.K. to SoftBank Mobile is over with no less than 12 press releases issued today in advance of the official launch on 1 October. The company has introduced 13 new handsets, a variety of updated service offerings and new personnel. As mobile number portability (MNP) arrives on 24 October, and with strong competition from market leader NTT DoCoMo and No. 2 carrier KDDI, the struggling former Vodafone franchise clearly needed to get their house in order.

Some little-known news: Industry insiders here were surprised to learn in late August that the long-time head of Qualcomm Japan, Ted Matsumoto, had moved over to SoftBank taking on the title of CSO (Chief Strategy Officer) for Masayoshi Son’s newly minted celco. The official announcement was made during a wide ranging press conference that also introduced Cameron Diaz as the star attraction for their new advertising campaign that planned to blitz TV and outdoor ads over the coming weeks.

On the network front, they have announced that ‘Super 3G’ (HSDPA), with availability limited to the greater Tokyo area, will start in October to service their new HTC – X01HT smartphone. This Windows Mobile-enabled unit will default to regular W-CDMA (or GSM/GPRS overseas) in areas without high-speed coverage. The company also announced new applications and services ranging from the widely expected Yahoo Mobile Search integration, “Hot Talk” instant messenger, a “3D Town” event guide map, and – finally – a “Live Monitor” scrolling text push service.

DoCoMo Sets BlackBerry Launch Date

DoCoMo have just announced they will start marketing a BlackBerry handheld device and BlackBerry-enabled service on 26 September 2006. The BlackBerry 8707h, made by Research In Motion Limited (RIM), and DoCoMo’s BlackBerry Network Service – enabling RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Solution – will be targeted at corporate customers. The BlackBerry 8707h operates on both W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS networks and can be used overseas for voice and packet (data) communications. WWJ has been following this story; see our related posts here and here.

DoCoMo Mobile Credit: Everything You Know About 3G is Useless

DoCoMo Mobile Credit: Everything You Know About 3G is Useless by Mobikyo KKWWJ has spotted the first presence of NTT DoCoMo’s ‘DCMX’ mobile credit (card) service on the streets of Tokyo and, once again, the future has arrived. Lawrence Cosh-Ishii, WWJ’s director of digital media, en route to a central Tokyo video shoot a few days ago, spied the first street-level advert for retail goods payable via DCMX (image at right).

Predictably, the pitch came from Girl’s Walker, Xavel’s icon of community-centric, user-recommended mobile shopping, which earned the company Pharaonic riches long before dusty old ‘blogs’ were ever invented. Girl’s Walker is touting a special fall line of fashionable goods that can be paid for via “DoCoMo credit,” which takes the form of a real credit payment for adults, or the purchase cost is added to the monthly phone bill, for cash-flush, under-age teens. Note no reference to any sort of ‘card’ – the service is the phone, and credit ‘cards’ are oh-so-1970s.

DCMX is shaping up to be the main pillar in DoCoMo’s consumer financial services strategy that will lock in mobilers and secure massive revenues long after 3G – and the mere delivery of mobile digital content – has become a low-margin sideline that markets elsewhere still can’t comprehend. DCMX isn’t merely the the ‘Next Big Thing’ – it’s everything; and it’s going to make 3G itself redundant (WWJ subscribers log in for full viewpoint and details on the DCMX mobile credit service).

NEC, Panasonic and TI Form Handset JV

NEC, NEC Electronics, Matsushita, Panasonic Mobile Communications and Texas Instruments just announced that the five companies have signed an agreement to establish a new joint venture company. The company will conduct global development, design, and technology licensing for a hardware and software communications platform to manage the core communications functions for 3G handsets. The new company, Adcore-Tech Co., Ltd (“Adcore-Tech”), is scheduled to be established in August, 2006 at the Yokosuka Research Park in Yokosuka, Japan, with approximately 180 employees.

(As we stated on Tuesday this week: “expect a formal announcement in the coming days.” — Eds.)

DoCoMo's Blackberry: Q&A with Research in Motion Japan

DoCoMo's Blackberry: Q&A with Research in Motion JapanThe pending Japan arrival of Research in Motion (RIM)’s hyperpopular BlackBerry email device, widely known as the ‘CrackBerry’ for its simple, efficient and addictive delivery of corporate email, will inject a new dimension into this country’s complex device and service matrix.
A wise move or a sign of desperation? These two viewpoints seem to characterize media, pundits’ and bloggers’ responses to last month’s announcement that DoCoMo would bring the BlackBerry email device into Japan, in partnership with RIM, based in Canada. Our own take on it was: Who Cares? WWJ was mindful that “virtually everyone in Japan’s workforce already has an always-on, fully connected email device right in their back pocket — in other words, a phone!”

Furthermore, before and since then, there has been more news, helping make it even more difficult to assess the BlackBerry’s prospects.

According to the pundits, NTT DoCoMo’s decision to import the BlackBerry is either (a) a master stroke aimed at securing the giant carrier’s corporate mobile offerings as 3G competition heats up in 2006/07, or (b) expensive folly that will see enterprise sales teams saddled with a clunky, ‘not-made-here’ device that competes poorly if at all against universal 3G phones that already receive push mail in real time, thank you very much (and some media reports have stated the first Japan BlackBerrys won’t even accept Japanese text input). The truth, however, is probably somewhere between these extremes, and so WWJ went straight to the source.

DoCoMo Working Towards Super 3G

DoCoMo has just announced that starting today it will accept proposals from suppliers for development of equipment for Super 3G base stations and handsets. DoCoMo will select one or more suppliers for each of these categories around October and aims to complete the technology with the selected suppliers before the end of 2009. The Super 3G standard is expected to provide superfast downlink data rates of over 100Mbps and uplink data rates of over 50Mbps, low-latency data transmission, and improved spectrum efficiency.

DoCoMo Seeking 3G Partner in China

NTT DoCoMo may seek partners in China after the Chinese government issues licenses for high-speed networks to expand in the world’s biggest mobile phone market. One of the standards, called W- CDMA, is the same as the platform adopted by DoCoMo in Japan. “We have to see what kind of technology the operators will use,” Takeshi Natsuno, senior vice president of multimedia services at Tokyo-based DoCoMo, said in an interview broadcast today. “After that, we can decide what kind of strategic alliance we’re going to make.”