NTT DoCoMo

Symbian loses key customer as Samsung walks

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:45:27 -0500

With the smartphone sector undergoing rapid growth, for Symbian to lose Samsung as a customer will come as a hammer blow to the company as it struggles to establish itself as a mass-market open OS provider.

The Korean company has announced that it will no longer use the Symbian OS in its smartphones from next year, believing that its own upcoming platform, Samsung bada, would be a better fit to the wide range of popular mass market touchscreen phones in its portfolio.

The move away from Symbian, according to Samsung's senior VP, Don Joo Lee, was part of a strategy rethink whereby the company wants to boost its handset shipments between 10 to 20 per cent from its 2009 target of about 200 million. While Samsung has confirmed it would continue to use Android and Windows Mobile, analysts have predicted the use of Windows Mobile would drop significantly next year.

Symbian has depended primarily on Nokia for support and this still seems secure, although there are indications that the company will place its bet on Maemo 6 for high-end smartphones in the years ahead. Sony Ericsson and multiple Japanese manufacturers building for NTT DoCoMo are Symbian's other major customers.

For more on this story:
Info Syncworld

Japanese developers push for LTE terminal standard

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 08:50:41 -0400

As the launch date for commercial LTE services comes ever closer, little has been mentioned on the availability of handsets or terminals. In an effort to ensure that a variety of devices becomes available to support LTE networks, the Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo and several technology developers have announced the completion of a chipset targeted for use within mobile platforms.

The group, which includes NEC, Panasonic Mobile and Fujitsu, claims that the joint development of the LTE-PF chipset contains baseband processing software together with other ‘basic functions'. The group expects the design to be licensed to other handset manufacturers worldwide.

The developers say that the LTE protocol on which LTE-PF is based is currently being standardised by 3GPP, with the chipset being available in sample quantities today.

With DoCoMo being one of the leaders in LTE deployment plans, the inclusion of three handset technology providers follows the model previously adopted in Japan whereby the operator co-operated closely with the terminal developers.

Having seen the Japanese handset industry lose its early lead in 3G mobile phones to more worldly vendors, this new grouping might be an attempt to set the agenda for LTE handsets using Japanese R&D as the starting point. However, it would seem likely that the major handset chipset suppliers, such as Qualcomm, have other plans.

For more on this story:
Cellular News

Japanese comics on your mobile phone

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:47:25 -0400

Mobile phone users in Europe are about to get a new service which will enable them to download Japanese comic books on to their mobile phones. Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo has announced its subsidiary DoCoMo Netherlands will be offering this service with immediate effect.

The comics, which are known as manga, are highly popular in Japan and are expected to be received with enthusiasm by European consumers. The new service, known as Manga Mode, will initially be available to customers of French mobile operator Bouygues Telecom and will be rolled out in other markets as opportunities arise.

Customers will be able to sign up for the Manga Mode service via the Bouygues Telecom website.

For more on this story:
go to 3g.co.uk

2008 Year in Review: Vodafone head sees LTE as an umbrella standard

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:19:10 -0500

By openly stating at the Mobile World Congress that LTE should encompass WiMAX, the former CEO of Vodafone, Arun Sarin, voiced the opinion of many on how to defuse a potentially costly and damaging battle between these two burgeoning wireless standards.

Sarin praised the progress made by both technologies during 2007, albeit that WiMAX was technically ahead with networks and end-user devices near to commercial deployment. However, Sarin urged the LTE camp should reposition itself to accommodate WiMAX. "The issue for me is simply resources in our industry: We only have a finite number of R&D engineers and if we split them into two camps, then we would be diluting what we can do in the future. The LTE standard is an accommodating standard and there is a TDD section that I think WiMAX could fit into."

Whilst Sarin's remarks caused many to review their strategy at the time, few public statements of support came from either the vendor or operator community. We had to wait in Europe until Q4 of this year before the CTO of T-Mobile, Joachim Horn, broke ranks by stating that the company would not deploy HSPA+ to further boost its mobile broadband throughput but would instead skip this technical evolution and invest in LTE. This public declaration followed statements from operators outside Europe, namely China Mobile, DoCoMo and Verizon Wireless, that they also intended to aggressively push forward with LTE.

In an attempt to gain the attention of these four major operators, Ericsson--which had just announced Q3 operating profits down 40 per cent, stated there would be commercial deployments of LTE starting in late 2009. According to John Cunliffe, Ericsson UK's CTO, trials of LTE would begin by the end of this year with commercial services, handsets and base stations surfacing during the latter part of next year. The company has already conducted drive testing of LTE in Sweden which produced peak download speeds of 154Mbps, a mean of 78Mbps and a minimum of 16Mbps--albeit that these figures bear little relationship to "real-world" throughput.

Horn was rather more cautious regarding deployment timescales, maintaining that LTE test networks would not be seen until mid- to late-2010.

Significance: LTE holds significant promise for mobile operators if they are allocated adequate spectrum and deployment costs are kept low. This latter issue may be the trigger to drive network RAN sharing between operators, something that has largely stalled over the last two years. It also has the ability to consolidate existing wireless technologies under a single umbrella standard and provide a technology framework that could last several decades.

Related articles:
T-Mobile CTO: I'll invest in LTE, not HSPA+
LTE ready for late 2009, says Ericsson
Vodafone CEO: WiMAX has a home in LTE

T-Mobile CTO: I'll invest in LTE, not HSPA+

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:23:14 -0500

Stepping up the pressure on equipment vendors, T-Mobile has stated it will not deploy HSPA+ to further boost its mobile broadband throughput but will instead skip this technical evolution and invest in LTE.

According to Chief Technology Officer Joachim Horn, the company will deploy HSPA as long as no hardware upgrades or replacements are necessary, and will look to improve network efficiency using software techniques. This effectively means T-Mobile can boost its current 7.2Mbps HSDPA network up to 14.4 Mbps on the downlink--and not to the next step of 28.8Mbps (and higher) that is enabled by HSPA+. The major drawbacks, according to Horn, are the necessary base station upgrades and the need for MIMO antennae.

Those looking for conspiracy theories might accuse T-Mobile of attempting to force equipment vendors to place greater emphasis on the development of LTE as against further refining HSPA+. Given that China Mobile, DoCoMo and Verizon Wireless have each made aggressive statements regarding their intent to push forward with LTE, then those interested in such plots have more to go on.

However, there is a question as to whether these operators, including T-Mobile, can wait for LTE--especially given the marketing hype around mobile broadband offers.

Horn is acutely aware of this issue and doesn't believe LTE test networks will be seen until mid- to late-2010. Horn seems content to adopt a long-term strategy: "LTE is suited in the long run, [around] 2020, to be the technology that you can consolidate all technologies onto--GSM and UMTS. That's a vision for 12 years from now."

For more on this story go to:
Unstrung

Related articles:
T-Mobile claims it tested LTE. T-Mobile story
China Mobile wants to test LTE ASAP. China Mobile story

UK femtocell supplier scores with Softbank

Paul Rasmussen — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:48:51 -0400

Japan's maverick cell phone operator, Softbank, will become the first operator to commercially launch 3G femtocells early next year. The company said it will use femtocells from UK-based Ubiquisys and a supporting IMS core from NEC configured with a SIP server to independently control communications from femtocells.

Softbank, which is Japan's third largest mobile operator after NTT DoCoMo and KDDI, has been rapidly gaining market share from these two long-term incumbents by employing radically new pricing policies and innovative marketing initiatives. Commenting on the contract win, Chris Gilbert, CEO of Ubiquisys, said, "The Japanese market has always led the world in mobile technology so it comes as little surprise that Softbank is the first operator to deploy 3G femtocells."

Softbank, which made its entry in the mobile sector by acquiring Vodafone's struggling Japanese subsidiary, has been trialling femtocells for some time having announced earlier this year that it had completed the development of a potentially commercial system.

Whilst the US operator Sprint might justifiably claim to be the first to deploy femtocells, these units were only to support voice services, whereas Softbank will be the first to deploy 3G based devices.

Also of note was NEC's simultaneous announcement that it would invest in the US-based FMC technology specialist Kineto Wireless to strengthen its presence in the 3G femtocell mobile phone market.

For more on this story:
- go to Telecoms.com and EE Times

Related articles:
Nokia Siemens looks to slash femtocell prices. Femtocell story
Femtocell survey identifies top three developers. Femtocell survey