Posts Tagged ‘ntt docomo’
Japan: 4G service will be launched in 2010 by DoCoMo
July 19th, 2009 | 
Author: Japan’s NTT DoCoMo says it will press ahead with a 2010 launch of 4G or Long-Term Evolution (LTE) services on its own, much as it did with 3G in 2001.
Left isolated
At that time it had expected operators in other countries to join it in pushing W-CDMA as the global 3G standard, an important factor given that Japan had no GSM network and was, thus, isolated in its ability to sell its technology globally.
However, most networks waited and eventually went with CDMA and other variants, leaving the groundbreaking DoCoMo out on a limb with phones that worked almost nowhere else.
No backup
Regardless of that experience, DoCoMo president Ryuji Yamada says he will press on with LTE next year and is confident the world will follow this time.
Speaking of the 2001 flop, Yamada said, “We went first and when we looked behind us there was nobody there.”
Movies the key
Key to persuading customers to use 4G services will be convincing them that phones can be the centre of their entertainment lives. To that end, LTE will play a significant role in quickly delivering movies and other media over connections expected to hit 300Mbps.
Posted in Communications | 
Tags: 3g, blog, blogs, Communications, docomo, Mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, Network, ntt docomo, Technology, Wireless, world | 
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Mobile: NTT DoCoMo planning investments in Asian carriers to sustain its growth
DoCoMo’s recent foreign investments include a 26 percent stake in Tata Teleservices, India’s sixth-largest mobile operator, a 30 percent stake in telecom operator Axiata’s Bangladesh unit, and a 16.5 percent stake in Malaysian operator U-Mobile.
“Our main target is Asia, and there are some other (promising) countries there. We are in contact (with carriers in those countries),” NTT DoCoMo Chief Executive Ryuji Yamada told Reuters in an interview on Thursday without elaborating.
DoCoMo is also seeking technological cooperation, rather than capital ties, with Chinese mobile operators such as China Mobile and China Unicom, Yamada said.
“Those are real giants and buying a stake of only a few percent could cost us several hundred billion yen (several billion dollars), and acquiring such stakes would not make much business sense for us,” Yamada said.
In a bid to enhance the appeal of its cell phone lineup and better compete with rivals KDDI Corp and Softbank Corp, DoCoMo on Friday plans to launch the first handset in Japan using Google Inc’s Android operating system.
On top of the smartphone made by Taiwan’s HTC Corp, DoCoMo is considering adding some more Android phones to its handset lineup by early next year, Yamada said.
Yamada added that he has also not given up on the possibility of offering Apple Inc’s iPhone to its subscribers.
In Japan, Softbank is the only carrier that offers the popular handsets at the moment.
Softbank, Japan’s third-largest mobile carrier, outran its bigger rivals in winning new signups minus cancellations for the 26th straight month in June, helped by the popularity of iPhones as well as an aggressive ad campaign and low-cost price plans.
Following Yamada’s comments, shares in NTT DoCoMo closed down 1 percent at 140,600 yen, outperforming the benchmark Nikkei average, which fell 1.4 percent.
Posted in Communications |
Tags: ad campaign, amp, apple, blog, blogs, business, business sense, car, cell phone, docomo, google, handsets, htc, iphone, Mobile, mobile carriers, mobile operators, ntt docomo, operating system, reuters, smartphone, system, t mobile, Wireless |
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Japan: NTT DoCoMo has launched its "Home area" femtocells to boost 3G coverage
The new femtocell BTS is compatible with High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technology for high-speed downlinks and uplinks. It also supports plug & play convenience for smooth, automatic configuration after connection to the DOCOMO network via a broadband fixed line, such as optical fiber.
DOCOMO introduced its existing femtocell BTS to expand mobile phone service in homes and small offices where radio signals from DOCOMO’s outdoor base stations have difficulty reaching. The significantly improved data-communication capability of the new femtocell BTS will enable faster, easier downloads of large content, such as video, high-resolution pictures and high-quality music files, as well as highly stable streaming for the uninterrupted enjoyment of audio-visual content on DOCOMO mobile phones.
The new model also will enable new services, such as mail notification to a parent when a child arrives home and their DOCOMO phone is detected to have entered the Home Area of the femtocell BTS. Another possible service is special limited-time electronic coupons sent from a store to nearby customers who choose to be detected when their DOCOMO mobile phones are in their Home Area.
DOCOMO will begin offering installation of its new femtocell BTS device this fall.
The new femtocell BTS will be exhibited at the DOCOMO booth at Wireless Japan 2009, which will take place at Tokyo Big Sight from July 22 to 24.
Posted in Communications |
Tags: 3g, amp, Audi, blog, blogs, docomo, Mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, music files, Network, ntt docomo, Technology, Wireless |
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Mobile money: NTT DoCoMo has a service allowing transfers between users of JPY 20,000
Customers of DOCOMO’s i-mode™ mobile Internet service on the FOMA™ 3G network will be able to remit up to 20,000 yen (about 208 U.S. dollars) per transfer, basically just by inputting the payee’s mobile phone number. The payee receives a mail notification via their DOCOMO mobile phone and is given the option of depositing the money in a domestic bank account or having the amount credited to their monthly DOCOMO phone bill. The payee can receive remittances totaling up to 200,000 yen (about 2,080 U.S. dollars) per month.
Posted in Communications |
Tags: 3g, blog, blogs, docomo, Internet, internet service, Mobile, mobile internet, mobile money, mobile phone, money, Network, ntt docomo |
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Adobe frees mobile flash: It’s about time
–The next version of the mobile Flash runtime will be free of license fees. Adobe also confirmed that the mobile version of the Air runtime will be free.
–Adobe changed its licensing terms and released additional technical information that will make it easier for companies to create their own Flash-compatible products.
–The company announced a new consortium called Open Screen supporting the more open versions of Flash and Air. Members of the new group include the five leading handset companies, three mobile operators (including NTT DoCoMo and Verizon), technology vendors (including Intel, Cisco, and Qualcomm), and content companies (BBC, MTV, and NBC Universal). Google, Apple, and Microsoft are not members. It’s not clear to me what the consortium members have actually agreed to do. My guess is it’s mostly a political group.
Adobe said that the idea behind the announcements is to create a single consistent platform that lets developers create an application or piece of content once and run it across various types of devices and operating systems. That idea is very appealing to developers and content companies today. It was equally appealing two years ago, when then-CEO of Adobe Bruce Chizen made the exact same promise (link):
If we execute appropriately we will be the engagement platform, or the layer, on top of anything that has an LCD display, any computing device — everything from a refrigerator to an automobile to a video game to a computer to a mobile phone.
If Adobe had made the Open Screen announcement two years ago, I think it could have caught Microsoft completely flat-footed, and Adobe might have been in a very powerful position by now. But by waiting two years, Adobe gave Microsoft advance warning and plenty of runway room to react — so much so that ArsTechnica today called Adobe’s announcement a reaction to Microsoft Silverlight (link).
Also, the most important changes appear to apply to the next version of mobile Flash and the upcoming mobile version of Air — meaning this was in part a vaporware announcement. Even when the new runtime software ships, it will take a long time to get it integrated into mobile phones. So once again, Microsoft has a long runway to maneuver on.
Still, the changes Adobe made are very useful. There’s no way Flash could have become ubiquitous in the mobile world while Adobe was still charging fees for it. The changes to the Flash license terms remove one of the biggest objections I’ve seen to Flash from open source advocates (link). The Flash community seems excited (link, link). And the list of supporters is impressive. Looking through the obligatory quotes attached to the Adobe release, two things stand out:
–Adobe got direct mentions of Air from ARM, Intel, SonyEricsson, Verizon, and Nokia (although Nokia promised only to explore Air, while it’s on the record promising to bundle Silverlight mobile).
–The inclusion of NBC Universal in the announcement will have Adobe people chuckling because Microsoft signed up NBC to stream the Olympics online using Silverlight. So NBC is warning Microsoft not to take it for granted, and Adobe gets to stick its tongue out.
What does it all mean?
Nothing much in the short term. As I mentioned earlier, this is mostly a vaporware announcement (other than the license changes). Some people are speculating that this will put pressure on Apple to make Flash available on the iPhone (link). That’s possible, if Apple’s real concern was that they didn’t like Flash Lite. Now they can port full Flash, or someone else can do it. But if Apple is in reality unwilling to let anyone else’s platform run on the iPhone then we’ll see other objections to Flash emerge.
The marketing competition to control the future of web apps is continuing to heat up. Microsoft is trying to take the whole thing proprietary by creating a comprehensive architecture, Adobe is trying to drive its own platform, Sun is trying to re-energize Java, Google is making its own moves, and so on (link). Plus, of course, most web app developers today are happy with what they’re using now and have little interest in switching to any of the new architectures (check out the dandy commentary by Joel Spolsky here).
It’s an enormously complex situation, and it’s going to take months, if not years, before we can start to see who’s winning and who is losing. Rubicon is working on a white paper that will try to clarify the situation a bit. I’ll let you know when it’s published.
In the meantime, enjoy the marketing fireworks. The intense competition is forcing companies to innovate faster and open up their products, as Adobe did today. I think that process is good for just about everyone in the industry.
Copyright 2008 Michael Mace.
Posted in Flash, Phones |
Tags: apple, apps, ash, bbc, blog, developers, docomo, free adobe, game, google, iphone, lcd display, Mac, microsoft, microsoft silverlight, mobile operators, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobile version, mobile world, mtv, ngage, nokia, ntt docomo, olympics, online, operating system, qualcomm, silverlight, sony, sonyericsson, system, t mobile, Technology, technology vendors, vaporware, video game, web applications platform, Windows |
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