WiMax
WiMax

WiMax

DoCoMo Plans to Test WiMax

DoCoMo also announced today that it has applied to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications for a license to set up experimental outdoor wireless stations to test WiMAX, which they refer to as a “new wide-area wireless broadband network technology, based on the IEEE 802.16e standard.” According to the statement, DoCoMo, working in collaboration with other NTT group companies, will conduct the test in the Yoyogi area of Tokyo for about one year using the 2.5GHz frequency band.

Yozan Expanding Tokyo WiMAX

In 2005, Airspan Networks signed agreements with Yozan Inc. to deploy a Tokyo-wide WiMAX network, valued at $16.7 million, to deliver high speed IP connectivity capable of a wide array of data service offerings. The companies has now announced a further $26 million expansion to their contract, bringing its value to more than $42 million. Airspan expects to deliver between $5 million and $8 million of the total in the first quarter of 2006, with the balance by July.

We have noticed plenty of outdoor ads for their BitStand brand here lately — Eds

KDDI Testing WiMax Network

KDDI just announced the results from their recent WiMAX trials held in central Osaka. The company has conducted the experiment to evaluate the performance of this system, in accordance with IEEE802.16e, and confirmed that practical use in an urban environment was possible. KDDI has charted the performance of this IP base “Ultra 3G” system as a wireless method to supplement exisiting 3G service with base station to radius coverage suitable for large city scale services.

3G Mobile Future: Exclusive Interview with Tomi Ahonen

3G Mobile Future: Exclusive Interview with Tomi AhonenTomi Ahonen is a smart guy who’s done a lot of observing and thinking about the 3G future. He reports that planet Earth has 2 bn mobile phones, with more phones in use than cars, credit cards or televisions, and that advertisers, businesses and governments are all trying to understand how the mobile future will download. For a glimpse into the future, Tomi was in Tokyo last month for the 3G Mobile World Forum 2006 where he observed that Japan already has the handsets, the networks and users who have migrated to 3G, while “the rest of the world is just starting to understand and discover this opportunity.”

He points out that in Japan, roughly 30 percent of all mobiles are 3G phones, compared to the UK, where it’s only 8 percent. “We have a long way to go to catch up.” WWJ’s Lawrence Cosh-Ishii caught up with Tomi for a tightly-focused interview covering 3G, 3.5G, consumer service definition, key technologies and how marketing and advertising are starting to recognize the potential of mobile.

NTT Planning WiMax Tests

NTT, Japan’s largest telecommunications group, plans to test WiMax technology as early as next month. Group companies will work together on trials of WiMax technology, said Masao Nakamura, president and CEO of NTT DoCoMo. Nakamura, who shared only a few details of the planned tests, confirmed that NTT DoCoMo would be one of the participants. Previously, NTT DoCoMo said it intended to push the 3G technology WCDMA to faster speeds. The “Super 3G” service will offer data transmission rates as high as 100Mbit/s and could be available in metropolitan areas as soon as 2008.

Fujitsu to Demo Newest WiMAX

Fujitsu Microelectronics America will demonstrate its newest WiMAX reference design system at the 12th annual Wireless Communications Association (WCA) International Symposium, January 17-19, at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose. The Fujitsu demonstration will feature a WiMAX base station communicating with a subscriber station built using the Fujitsu WiMAX reference design kit. The kit incorporates all the hardware and software required to allow designers to develop WiMAX-compliant equipment based on the Fujitsu MB87M3400 WiMAX System-on-Chip (SoC), the industry-leading WiMAX implementation.