After launching Mickey Mouse MVNO, Disney is looking to launch the iPhone to go with it.
Only those who have been totally blocked-out from all media sources over the last year would wonder what an iPhone is as the so-called “Jesus Phone” has been in the mainstream headlines since even before it was officially unveiled in January. However, for a combination of reasons, there has only been mild speculation about when – or indeed how – it would become available in the Japanese market. Citing the initial lack of 3G capability, not too mention an ‘unusual’ operator revenue share arrangement, the story so far has centered around deployments in the US and Europe.
We noted here on Wireless Watch last week that, “SoftBank and Disney have come to terms on rolling out the long-awaited Mickey Mouse MVNO in Japan.”, and it would seem – as speculated then – the iPhone could very well play front and center role in their plans. Looking beyond whois on their board of directors, a handset deal tied to revenue share from the traditional operators would be a ‘difficult’ proposition in Japan. With a dozen OEM’s here who have long-established carrier connections, such a move would — shall we say — set a rather disruptive standard going forward. However, an MVNO like Disney should have a little more breathing space to maneuver and most certainly would love to splash with some glitzy hardware bling in order to attract even more attention.
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*pic from Wireless Watch Japan
Expo Comm Wireless Japan for 2008 will be held at Tokyo Big Sight (Tokyo International Exhibition Center), East hall 1 – 2 – 3 – 21 – 1, Ariake, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0063, JAPAN. You can expect to see the latest wireless offerings as well as concept phones from various mobile giants from the industry there. Pre-registration is not required for foreign visitors, which leaves me with a question whether locals need to.
Anyway for more information about the event, check out their website: Expo Comm Wireless Japan 2008.
The 1Seg digital TV phone from Sharp has reached it’s 5 million points in Japan in just 18 months and that is a pretty interesting figure. After all, having a digital TV during those long train rides could come in handy in beating boredom away.
Sharp announced on Friday that it has passed the five-million mark for shipments of 1Seg digital tv phones in Japan. Since releasing its first handset in May 2006 – introduced by Vodafone – Sharp has deployed a total of eight models across all three operators. By reaching this milestone in less than 18 months, Sharp becomes the first OEM in the industry to ship five million 1Seg-enabled units.
Sharp’s first unit had a “Cycloid-Style” swival screen that could be rotated horizontally 90 degrees. This unique design helped make the 905SH a hit with consumers. Sharp has also equipped its mobile phones with technologies like the Mobile Advanced Super View LCD, based on technology cultivated through the development of AQUOS LCD TVs, and the SV (Super Vivid) Engine. Sharp followed up the cycloid-style handset with the release of various other designs mobile phones, including dual-hinged and slider models.
Via Wireless Watch jp.
The IMOBILE Flying C1000, a mouthful to say, is fantastic. It’s a GSM telephone, a Digital Audio Player, a touchscreen, an MP3/MP4 player with bluetooth and you can put it on your wrist. This is the ultimate geekiest geek gadget out there in the market. You really need to get this. You know who you are. :P
Phone Daily via Akihabara
All you Dragon Ball Z fans will be delighted to know that starting Aug 20, you can watch ALL 291 episodes of Dragon Ball Z on your keitais :)
The special site that holds that privileges of distributing the episodes has its own special currency of “zenis”. If you ask me that’s pretty much one word away from being obsene. Anyhow, it’s 100 zenis or 100 yen inclusive of taxes for one episode. Right now, the episodes are only available to NTT DoCoMo FOMA handsets from the 902i series or later. So if you’re using that now, lucky you. If not, i think you guys and girls will have to wait.
Since dragon ball z has been discontinued years ago, the market target is naturally people in their 20’s and 30s.
This is a little late but interesting nonetheless. I read on DoCoMo’s official site about an experiment DoCoMo is doing with 3G that entails a 300MBps speed internet line. Woot! I think that’s super fast, if not, super fast :)
TOKYO, JAPAN, July 13, 2007 — NTT DoCoMo, Inc. announced today that this month it began testing an experimental Super 3G system for mobile communications. With this experiment, DoCoMo will seek to achieve a downlink transmission rate of 300Mbps over a high-speed wireless network.
Super 3G features low-latency data transmission and improved spectrum efficiency. It is a highly advanced version of High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA), which have been evolved from W-CDMA packet transmission technologies standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). The 3GPP, a telecommunications standards organization, is currently discussing standardization of Super 3G under the name Long Term Evolution (LTE).
DoCoMo will begin with an indoor experiment to test transmission speed using one transmitting and one receiving antenna. The company will then expand the experiment to examine downlink transmission by employing up to four Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antennas for both the base station (transmission side) and mobile station (receiving side); the goal is to achieve a downlink transmission speed of 300Mbps. MIMO is an antenna technology for wireless communications in which different data streams are spatially multiplexed using multiple antennas for both transmission and reception on the same frequency. Also to be examined is the “handover function” — switching of the connection between two base stations.
DoCoMo will also examine the functionality of applications for voice and image transmission, games and the like, key capabilities impacting the Super 3G system’s marketability.
DoCoMo, aiming to achieve sustainable, efficient use of 3G spectrum resources, is leading the discussion over LTE. DoCoMo believes Super 3G will allow the company to make a smooth transition to 4G in the future.
In July 2006, DoCoMo began accepting proposals from suppliers seeking to develop Super 3G equipment and expects to complete development of Super 3G technology by 2009.
Press release
Tokyo, Japan, June 26, 2007 – (JCN Newswire) – NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries today unveiled new discounts on two-year billing plans for families and individuals, offering substantial reductions on basic monthly charges from the first year and rising to as much as 50% in later years.
The new “Fami-wari MAX” plan will enable each subscriber in a family to receive the discount rate of the longest-subscribing family member, or a maximum of 50% for subscribers who have been with DoCoMo for at least 11 years.
Applicants must subscribe to the Family Discount billing plan, which currently accounts for more than 70% of DoCoMo’s total subscribers.
read more about it here..
I think this article would be very useful to those who have been experiencing phone problems with their network.
Niigata Quake Affects Mobile Services
Several mainstream media reports indicate the powerful earthquake which struck northern Japan on Monday has caused disruption to communications services in the country. The earthquake struck just off the coast of Niigata prefecture, the magnitude 6.8 quake registered an intensity of 6+ on Japan’s scale of 0 to 7, in three locations. As a result of the temblor major telecommunications carriers have imposed restrictions on phone calls into and out of the affected area.
NTT East Corp., the major fixed-line provider in the area, has activated its “disaster dial 171″ service that allows people in the area to leave voicemail messages that can be checked by those in the rest of the country.
The earthquake damaged 93 wireless-communications base stations operated by Softbank. The damage disrupted part of the company’s wireless services in Niigata and Nagano, said Katsuhide Furuya, a Softbank Mobile Corp. spokesman.
From Wireless Watch Japan
DoCoMo introduced a string of new handsets recently and one of them is the LG Chocolate phone. Now, if you haven’t seen the chocolate phone, i have two words to describe it – deliciously sexy. The phone is a slider phone and it comes in a sleek dark chocolate color. Check out the offer DoCoMo is offering with this handset:
New from Wireless Japan.
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