Japan mobile phones top 100m mark
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The number of mobile phone subscriptions in Japan tops 100 million for the first time, a telecoms association says.
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Motorola, No. 2 maker of mobile telephones, and NTT DoCoMo, the world&#39;s second-largest wireless carrier, will jointly develop handsets to attract business customers in Japan.
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The wireless e-mail platform works on more than 100 handsets.
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(InfoWorld) - NTT DoCoMo came close to hitting another data transmission milestone in its research into next-generation cellular telephone systems during an experiment conducted in Japan on Dec. 25 last year. The company, Japan's leading cellular carrier, managed to transmit data at close to 5GbpsÂ to a receiver moving at 10 kilometers per hour, said Yoshiki Kakuda, a spokesman for the Tokyo company. He said the company's public relations department didn't know the exact speed achieved but that it was close to the 5Gbps mark. About a year earlier NTT DoCoMo succeeded inÂ transmitting data at 2.5GbpsÂ and this time managed to double that by increasing the number of MIMO (multiple in multiple out) transmitting and receiving antennas from six to 12 each and using better signal processing in the receiver. MIMO involves sending data using multiple antennas to increase the total throughput. The result was a doubling in the amount of data transmitted in the same 100MHz chunk of radio spectrum. Details of the experiment will be detailed at next week's 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. NTT DoCoMo has been working on what it calls 4G (fourth-generation) technology for close to 10 years but the technology remains some way from commercialization. The carrier had previously said it plans to launch 4G in Japan around 2010 but recently indicated it plans to wring more speed out of its WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) 3G network before switching to a new technology. The carrier plans to launch a "Super 3G (third-generation)" service around 2010 that will offer data transmission at around 100Mbps. When NTT DoCoMo launched its 3G network in 2001, it could carry data at 384Kbps but that was recently raised to 3.6Mbps with the launch of an upgrade called HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access). Carriers in other countries are also deploying the faster technology on their networks.
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Japan's largest mobile operator, NTT  DoCoMo Inc. 9437.T, unveiled on Wednesday a new line of  advanced mobile phones with stereo-quality surround sound,  high-resolution digital cameras, and a special chip that allows  owners to use their phones as a debit card.
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JAPAN&#39;S top mobile carrier has begun marketing a mobile phone for corporate customers that works over both the local wireless and cellular networks.
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NTT DoCoMo, top mobile phone carrier in Japan, and Motorola Inc., worldâs number two cell-phone maker, plans to develop third-generation cell phones that allow subscribers in Japan to use services in other parts of Asia and Europe.
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Global mobile phone use will pass the 3  billion mark -- equivalent to half the world's population --  for the first time in 2007 as cell phone demand booms in China,  India and Africa, a survey said on Wednesday.
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Unidenâs water resistant phone has a 100-name phone book, caller ID with a 100-number memory and 20 ring tones.
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The deal is valued at about $100 million, but the handset maker will be billed based on actual service consumption.
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Japanese wireless operator NTT DoCoMo said Friday that it has achieved wireless speeds in the laboratory of 1 Gbps. The operator has said for more than a year that it is working on
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(InfoWorld) - In the world of cellphones, it's the equivalent of a big-screen TV. Fujitsu's F904i, which goes on sale in Japan on Friday, packs a 3.1-inch widescreen display -- the largest yet seen on a handset with digital TV reception. When the clamshell phone is opened up, the 16:9 screen sits vertically but a clever mount means it can be twisted horizontally to the left or right allowing TV shows to be watched in widescreen with no letterboxing, which are the back bars seen above and below a widescreen image on a conventional TV. It also makes Web site browsing much easier than on a conventional cellphone screen. The phone also packs a browser for the PC as well as mobile Internet. If an e-mail comes in while TV is being watched, the phone displays an alert. Users can continue watching TV while reading or sending a reply -- thanks to the widescreen display. Other features include GPS (Global Positioning System) navigation, a music player, document viewer and a 3-megapixel camera with Fujitsu's Milbeaut image processor, which is used in conventional digital still cameras. The F904i measures 108 millimeters by 50 millimeters by 22 millimeters and weighs 138 grams. Fujitsu says the battery will provide up to 190 minutes of talk time and up to 550 hours on standby. The phone will be available in Japan through NTT DoCoMo. While it won't be available overseas, it provides a taste of what might be coming soon from other handset makers as digital TV becomes more popular.
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TOKYO -- NTT DoCoMo, Japan's biggest mobile communications carrier, achieved a 1GbpsÂ packet transmission speed using fourth-generation (4G) mobile communication equipment on Aug. 20, the company said Friday.
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International mobile-phone vendors Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications totaled 48% of the Taiwan handset market in September, holding the top three positions, according to statistics compiled by Taiwan mobile-phone distributors.
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CNET takes a look at some the advanced handsets from Japanese cell phone provider NTT DoCoMo at 2008 GSMA Mobile World Congress.
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AMSTERDAM/SEOUL  - South Korea's Samsung  Electronics overtook Motorola as the world's second-biggest  mobile phone maker in the third quarter as the market continued  to boom, a survey showed on Wednesday.
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It&#39;s easy to be wowed by Japan&#39;s mobile communications infrastructure. &quot;Next-generation&quot; 3G coverage is now so ubiquitous that carriers have already stopped launching 2G phones; an impressive array of attractive handsets offer free digital TV; phones can be used to pay for goods and train rides, thanks to embedded contactless smart cards; and on the mobile information superhighway data whizzes along at 3.6Mbps. But watch out for the off-ramps.While Japan has led the world with many of the services offered to consumers, in some ways the mobile ecosystem here is downright backward as I found out last weekend when I tried to buy a new phone. A broken handset necessitated a new model and this is where my story begins.In Japan, phones are sold by carriers and not the phone makers. Companies like Fujitsu, NEC, Sony Ericsson, and a few foreign vendors including Nokia, Samsung, and LG sell their phones in the thousands to carriers. This gives carriers the ability to pretty much dictate to the phone maker what software needs to be installed.This model is one of the reasons that mobile Internet services like I-mode took off here so quickly. There was no chicken-and-egg situation with phone makers and users waiting for each other to take the plunge. NTT DoCoMo decided I-mode would be in new phones and so it was.But this model has a downside. Phones are so tightly customized to each carrier that it&#39;s not practical to keep the same handset when switching carriers, and if you see a phone you like you can only buy it if it&#39;s offered by your carrier.Back to my story. The new phone was looking quite expensive so I decided to switch carriers and take advantage of a free phone on a competitor network. Japan launched number portability a year ago, so I could make the jump without losing my cell-phone number. I&#39;d still have the hassle of a new e-mail address, but it appeared a small price to pay.Before long I had a new phone in my hands, but my phone numbers remained locked in the old handset. The new carrier didn&#39;t have a cable to hook up to my old phone so they couldn&#39;t transfer the address book and it wasn&#39;t possible to beam it between the phones. While my old carrier was gung-ho on Bluetooth, my new carrier wasn&#39;t so enthusiastic, so the new phone had no support. Similarly, while the new phone offered infrared, the old phone didn&#39;t. Heavy customization strikes again.Back home I fired up my PC and managed to get my address book from the old phone into the computer. Getting it to the new phone via a memory card seemed like an easy task ... but no! The VCard file wasn&#39;t being properly read by the new phone. Carriers, it was explained to me when I called the help line, often used custom fields in their VCards so there were sometimes problems. So much for a common standard.I won&#39;t bore you with the technicalities of how I eventually got my address book into my new phone, but suffice to say this story has a happy ending. I&#39;m now back in cruise control, enjoying all the attractions the mobile superhighway has to offer.The number portability system that enabled me to keep my phone number is coincidentally one-year-old this week. About 3 percent of users in Japan -- roughly 3.7 million people -- have made use of the system during its first year -- far less than the industry predicted, or feared.One thing that&#39;s said to be stopping users from switching is the inability to keep their e-mail addresses. While carriers fussed over the details of keeping numbers, they forgot, or perhaps ignored, the need to carry e-mail addresses between carriers. In other countries this wouldn&#39;t be a big deal because most messaging is done via SMS, which relies on phone numbers, but in Japan the advanced stage of the market has again caused hassle for consumers.