Japan's Mobile Number Portability Rules Initiated a Major Shift to CDMA2000;  Nearly 9 Out of Every 10 Mobile Users Are Choosing KDDI
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COSTA MESA, Calif., Dec. 12, 2006 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- The CDMA Development Group (CDG) announced today that in the wake of Japan's mobile number portability (MNP) rules, KDDI, Japan's second-largest operator, is witnessing a significant boost in net subscriber numbers.
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The number of mobiles with GPRS and MMS technology has doubled since last year, figures show.
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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.
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China recorded more than 320 million subscribers to mobile phone services as of the end of October this year, equivalent to a penetration rate of 24.8 users per 100 persons, according to statistics released by Chinaâs Ministry of Information Industry.
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Seven mobile operators spanning both the GSM and CDMA worlds have teamed up to create a common set of requirements from network and handset providers for when they evolve to fourth-generation technology and beyond.
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Recent launches by Entel PCS, Chile and MTC, Namibia raised the number of commercial HSDPA networks to 91.Comment
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Nearly 8 million mobile phone users have switched carriers and kept their cell numbers since a new rule allowing that flexibility went into effect one year ago, the Federal Communications Commission disclosed Tuesday.
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NTT DoCoMo, Japan's dominant mobile operator, is planning to offer combined fixed and mobile services to business and residential customers. It is the latest sign of growing global interest in convergence between the two technologies.
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KDDI KEEPS TOP POST IN MOBILE SUBSCRIBER GROWTH IN FEB.--KDDI Corp.  posted the largest net subscriber growth among Japanese mobile phone service firms in February, keeping the top spot for the seventh month in a row, the Telecommunications Carriers Association reported.
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Nokia has demonstrated the first mobile IPv6 call, using its CDMA dual stack handset. The demonstration was made at the 3G World Congress Convention and Exhibition, which took place this week in Hong Kong.
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Global research by MORI, conducted for Nokia, has identified a strong trend for consumers to move from their fixed line phones to use their mobile handsets for all or most of their voice calls.
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By Kyodo News International, Tokyo  Sep. 4--TOKYO -- KDDI Corp., the major phone carrier, will launch a new  device this fall that will allow mobile-phone users to read data on integrated  circuit tags when the device is attached to a mobile phone, company officials  said Monday.
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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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Once upon a time, telecom regulators had what they figured was a brilliant notion. Let consumers transfer their cell phone numbers when they switch mobile service providers. The notion is called Mobile Number Portability (MNP), and regulators in many countries have adopted the strategy as a way to spur competition between carriers and increase customer satisfaction.
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Japan&#39;s biggest mobile telecom carrier gave its strongest support yet to&#160;Google&#39;s Android platform&#160;on Thursday when it said it is considering a cell phone based on the technology.&quot;We are starting discussions to offer handsets that will have the Android operating system,&quot; said Takeshi Natsuno, managing director of the multimedia services department at NTT DoCoMo.The talks include getting support for I-mode, DoCoMo&#39;s hit mobile Internet service, on the Android platform. Nearly 48 million of DoCoMo&#39;s 53 million customers subscribe to I-mode, so having it on Android will be key to the Google platform&#39;s success in Japan.Android is a Linux-based platform for cell phones that will combine open-source components and include an operating system, middleware stack, customizable user interface and applications.NTT DoCoMo is one of the founding members of the Open Handset Alliance, the group developing Android. Until Thursday hadn&#39;t disclosed what it hoped to gain from its participation in the group, which includes about 40 companies including some of the biggest names in the cell phone industry.&quot;When I look at the prototype, the Android-based handset works really well even on some of the cheaper handset designs,&quot; said Natsuno.Natsuno didn&#39;t provide any specifics about when such a handset might be available. When the Open Handset Alliance was launched last year Google said that it expected the first phones running the software to appear in late 2008.Despite its support for Android, NTT DoCoMo is also working with companies developing rival platforms. It has an alliance with Access, a Japanese software company with which is has deep ties, on the Access Linux Platform (ALP). DoCoMo is working on a &quot;carrier pack,&quot; a set of unique products and services, that can run on ALP, which is intended to be a common Linux platform for cell phones.Natsuno&#39;s comments came at a Tokyo news conference held to detail a partnership between the carrier and Google.The alliance will see Google products and applications added to DoCoMo handsets. These will include the addition of a Google search box on the main I-mode menu page from which users will access mobile and PC Web sites. Google Ads will appear alongside search results. The two companies said they are also planning to bring more Google services, such as Google Maps, to handsets and build in support for Flash video so that users can access and stream content from YouTube.Google will appear as the default start page on mobile phones that feature browsers for the full Internet.The deal is Google&#39;s second in the mobile space in Japan. It already has a deal with second-ranked carrier &quot;au&quot; to which it provides search and advertising services. Number three carrier Softbank Mobile has a link with Yahoo Japan, the portal in which its parent company, Softbank, is the biggest shareholder.&#160;
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CHEJU, South Korea  - Global mobile operators and   device makers are betting that the next level of transmission   technology will ramp up mobile phone usage in a way that   third-generation technology has so far failed to do.
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Japan sees first Travel, Mobile Media Companions