Softbank eyes free mobile-Web phone calls: sources
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Softbank Corp , in a tight race  for customers in Japan's saturated mobile phone market, may  offer free calls between users of mobile phones and Web-based  phones, sources briefed on the matter said on Tuesday.
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A Silicon Valley start-up is gearing up to embed free, Web-based telephone services on a variety of popular social networking and blogging services, including MySpace, Friendster and Blogger.
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Japan's Access Co. (4813.T) said on  Thursday that it and Softbank Corp. (9984.T) have developed  Internet browsing and email software for cell phones.
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Tokyo, Feb. 8 (Jiji Press)--Softbank Corp.  on Thursday reported record nine-month group revenue and profits for April-December 2006 thanks to its robust mobile phone business.  In the first nine months of fiscal 2006, net profit increased 23.1 pct from a year before to 21,933 million yen.
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Upcoming cell phone will offer integrated VoIP features and tools for wireless Web access.
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Japanese telecoms operator and Internet investor Softbank Corp said on Monday it was to introduce a new phone service, which analysts said was likely to be a cut-rate, fixed-line service that could hit dominant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp (NTT
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Japanese telecoms and internet firm Softbank is to launch a new cut-rate, fixed line phone service, which could hit the sales of the country's dominant provider NTT.
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DotMobi, the group that promotes and manages the mobile-phone top-level domain, is publishing a list of specifications for virtually all phones on the market in a bid to make life easier for developers.While such lists are available from other companies, this one will be cheaper, making it more accessible to smaller developer companies and individuals, said Paul Nerger, vice president of advanced services and applications for dotMobi.Unlike the PC market, where most computers and widely used browsers comply with accepted standards, mobile phones each have different specifications and attributes. Developers must tweak their applications and content for different phones, even those running the same operating systems, so that the content fits onto the phone screen and so that applications work properly on phones that might not have certain capabilities.In the U.S., the same phone might even have different requirements based on the operator that sells it, since service providers sometimes disable features. That makes it hard for developers to build applications that can be used by a very wide population of phone owners.While dotMobi&#39;s list doesn&#39;t solve that problem, it does make it easier for developers to identify characteristics of phones and deliver applications to them that will work well. That should encourage more mobile development, Nerger said. &quot;Our job is to make the mobile &#39;Net happen,&quot; he said.The database will be free for anyone to view and browse. Developers can also choose to buy dotMobi&#39;s device detection software, which they can use to detect attributes of phones that are connecting to their Web pages in order to deliver content and services that best suit the devices. The price for that was set to cover costs for dotMobi, Nerger said. Developers will pay US$99 a year for the software; dotMobi customers will pay $79.DotMobi first announced that it was developing the list, which aims to include phones for sale worldwide, in the middle of last year and originally intended to release it at the end of 2007.One developer of a similar list thinks the dotMobi effort will be good for smaller developers, but likely won&#39;t meet the needs of bigger companies. Mobile Research maintains a database of all phones sold in the U.S. Workers there actually buy each phone, testing them for over a thousand different attributes, said David Adams, the founder of Mobile Research.Subscribers to the list, such as mobile Web sites, mobile application developers and content providers, plug it into their databases so that when a phone hits their sites, they can deliver the formatted site or content to fit the phone.Subscribers pay upwards of $10,000 per year for the list, which is continually updated.DotMobi is compiling its list by collecting information from a variety of sources, including phone makers like Nokia and operators like Vodafone. It will also use the data available from WURFL (Wireless Universal Resource File), an open-source project that compiles information about phones around the world, collected from users and developers. DotMobi isn&#39;t planning to buy and individually test each phone and so Adams suspects the list won&#39;t cover as many attributes as his.Mobile Research counts Microsoft, Google and T-Mobile among its customers.
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Japan's Access Co. said on Thursday that  it and Softbank Corp. have developed Internet browsing and  email software for cell phones.
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A new mobile service called Blyk will offer subscribers some free calls and text messages in return for their agreeing to accept advertising on their phones.
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People already use their cellphones to surf the Web, take photos and text message - besides making calls. Now, a growing number of banks are also letting them pay bills and transfer money through their cellphones.
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Japan's Softbank Corp. 9984.T plans to   raise about $12 billion by securitizing earnings of the cell   phone unit it bought from Vodafone Group PLC VOD.L, a source   close to the matter said on Tuesday, allowing it to secure   funds at a lower rate than with conventional loans.
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Japan's Softbank Corp. plans to raise  about $12 billion by securitizing earnings of the cell phone  unit it bought from Vodafone Group PLC, a source close to the  matter said on Tuesday, allowing it to secure funds at a lower  rate than with conventional loans.
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Early this month, several Web sites began offering software promising ringtones and screensavers for certain cell phones. But those who downloaded the software
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EBay  division Skype and mobile  phone group 3 have launched a mobile handset that allows Skype  users to make free Internet calls to each other while on the  move.
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Softbank Corp., Japan's largest Internet provider, complained that its plan to offer a new mobile phone service could be thwarted by the government's refusal to provide the necessary bandwidth.
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Talking to groups of people on your mobile phone has never been easier.  Today Foonz introduces the first service that lets anyone call a group  of people instantly, for free, from any phone regardless of the carrier  or service provider.