Telecommunications

July 2007

Softbank To Launch Fiber-Optic IP Phone Service In Aug
Softbank Corp. in August will start an IP (Internet Protocol) telephone service using a fiber-optic communications network that will allow subscribers to speak to each other for free after paying a small monthly charge. Subscribers will include the five million or so existing users of Softbank's BB Phone service, the nation's largest IP phone service, which is provided through an ADSL network. Softbank thinks providing IP services based on both fiber-optic and ADSL technologies will enable it to better compete with the NTT group, which also offers an IP phone service. In contrast with regular phone service, which imposes fees according to the distance of calls, Internet-based IP services charge uniform, low-level rates for calls anywhere in the country. While subscribers to BB Phone are now able to talk with each other for free, users of the NTT group's fiber-optic IP service are charged for each call. Basic rates for the new service, dubbed BB Communicator, are set at 315 yen a month, including taxes, with calls via the service to regular fixed phones costing 8.4 yen per three minutes, including taxes, roughly the same as the fees charged by the NTT group and other competitors. BB Communicator will use fiber-optic communications lines owned by the NTT group and other telecom carriers, so new subscribers will be able to obtain access to the service only by using adapters provided by Softbank. (The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, July 29, 2007)

DoCoMo To Provide Full Japanese Support For BlackBerry
NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Tuesday it would provide full Japanese-language support for BlackBerry mobile handsets from next week. A software download for existing handsets will be offered on the company's Web site that will allow text input and menu display in Japanese. A server upgrade will be offered by Research In Motion Ltd., which makes the devices, a DoCoMo spokesman said. RIM was not immediately available for comment. DoCoMo, Japan's biggest mobile carrier, began domestic sales of Blackberry handsets in September of last year with English menus and Japanese display capability. The launch was popular among foreign businesses in Japan, a testament to the device's popularity in the U.S. and Europe. But DoCoMo is hoping to lure more Japanese customers with the upgrade. The DoCoMo spokesman said the company had received "a lot" of inquiries for Japanese functionality from customers, but declined to provide figures or sales to date. (Dow Jones, July 17, 2007)