New Mobile Phone Billing System (Back to News Reports)

TOKYO, JAPAN, May 15, 2002 --- NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries announced today that they will introduce a new billing system that enables users to pay monthly mobile phone bills at convenience stores using a two-dimensional bar code on the screens of their mobile phones. The service, dubbed "combien?" will be available at two am/pm Japan convenience stores in Tokyo ("Ichiban-cho Honsha Biru" and "Kokusai Akasaka Biru" stores) beginning May 20, 2002. Service will expand to some 1,400 am/pm stores nationwide by early July. It will also be available at several Lawson convenience stores by mid-July and expand to some 700 locations in Tokyo's 23 wards and Nagoya as of September. DoCoMo is also negotiating similar arrangements with other convenience stores. Since the service eliminates the need for a hard-copy invoice, customers can easily pay their bills whenever they visit a participating convenience store. The service is targeted at i-mode users who pay their bills by invoice. The bar code is downloaded from a dedicated site linked to the i-mode portal. To prevent double payment, the bar code is valid only on the day when it is downloaded. A dedicated scanner is used to read the two-dimensional bar code, after which the customer pays the bill.

SOURCE NTT DoCoMo, Inc. Back to News Reports

Mobile Phone Outlook Takes a Bite from Bluetooth Forecast
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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., May 14, 2002 - Despite being directly impacted by the effects of a downgraded mobile phone market forecast, the Bluetooth market will be strong, according to In-Stat/MDR. The high-tech market research firm reports that, despite delays of some very large, planned 2001 chipset shipments from December to the first quarter this year, Bluetooth chipsets will surge from 10.4 million units in 2001 to 690 million units in 2006, a five-year 132% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), with silicon revenue rising to $2.7 billion in 2006. Manufactured Bluetooth-enabled equipment will climb to 644 million units over the same period. Though the mobile phone market will still outshadow all other applications, headsets will make a major Bluetooth play this year, as well as PDAs.

SOURCE In-Stat MDR Press Release Back to News Reports

Report published on effectiveness of mobile phone radiation shields
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10 May 2002 - The Department of Trade and Industry today published a report into the effectiveness of various types of mobile phone radiation shields.

The report was commissioned by the DTI in response to the recommendation made by the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phone (Stewart Report, May2000). It was carried out by independent scientific team.

The report shows that: - mobile shields and devices which cover the antenna can significantly reduce mobile phone exposure for the user. But these same accessories can usually only do this at the cost of inhibiting the phone's performance - it will be particularly noticeable indoors and in other weak reception areas. - Absorbing devices known as 'buttons' do not reduce mobile phone exposure for the user in the standard exposure tests.

Government advises consumers to follow Department of Health guidelines on mobile phone use www.doh.gov.uk/mobilephones, and to consider information now provided by mobile companies on exposure levels when buying a new phone. Some new phones have levels many times less than older models.

SOURCE - DTI Press Release Back to News Reports

Samsung Electronics Supplies CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Phones
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The high-performance TFT-LCD on the SCH-V300 was developed exclusively in-house by the Samsung Electronics Digital Device Solution Division. It is large enough to display up to 12 lines of text at a time. Users can also download, store and play back video clips.

The phone has an embedded 110,000-pixel camera that enables users to take high-quality digital pictures and send them to mobile via SMS and to computer via e-mail as well. Up to 100 still photos can be stored in the phone and used as a background for the display.

The camera rotates 180 degrees to facilitate picture taking from any angle. The SCH-V300 has taken mobile multimedia to a new level. The phone supports a MMS (multimedia messaging service) that encompasses voice, image, text and background music instead of just voice mail and email. In addition, an independent voice recognition function dials the numbers of names in the phonebook without the need for a prerecording. The utility of this function is thus enhanced and a new trend has been set for mobile phones.

The Samsung Electronics EV-DO mobile phone comes with a 40-chord progression polyphonic ring tone. Other features include 3D graphics interface and menus that switch between Korean and English. A Samsung spokesperson says, "We are initially supplying the phone (to SK Telecom), and it will be available to the general public by the end of May. The CDMA2000 1xEV-DOservice will become the Korean market mainstream in the second half of this year, and we plan to not only bolster the status of the Samsung mobile brand but also lead the way to IMT-2000."

SOURCE Samsung Electronic Co. Ltd Press Office Back to News Reports

Ericsson compression technology boosts 3G network
(Back to News Reports)

8 May 2002 12:41 - Ericsson compression technology boosts 3G network capacity Ericsson has closed the circle from the initial idea to verification by hosting a successful Robust Header Compression, ROHC, interoperability test recently in Sweden. ROHC means performance gains of typically 50 percent for IP based services in all 3G systems.

Robust header compression, ROHC, will be used in all 3G cellular systems (WCDMA, EDGE and, CDMA2000), substantially improving spectrum efficiency and service quality for IP services such as voice or video in Mobile Internet.

ROHC has been included in 3GPP specifications and is a new Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) proposed standard, developed to increase efficiency over wireless links by compressing IP headers. For wireless IP services such as voice, the ROHC scheme reduces packet size by 75 percent for IPv6 while still maintaining robustness to transmission errors common on wireless links. Ericsson has pioneered in this field, proposing a solution and driving the standards process. In collaboration with Luleå University of Technology in Sweden, Ericsson presented the first robust header compression scheme called ROCCO to the IETF in June 1999. In July 2000, Ericsson and Japan Telecom successfully completed the world's first field trial of Voice over IP over WCDMA, using ROCCO. The ROCCO scheme provided a major contribution to today's ROHC standard. The interoperability test was conducted together with Nokia, Siemens/Roke Manor Research, Effnet and Panasonic. The test covered the major parts of the ROHC standard including test of robustness over emulated WCDMA/3G links.

SOURCE Ericsson (SE) Press Release Back to News Reports

UK to make IMEI re-programming illegal (Back to News Reports)

A new bill was proposed yesterday in the UK's parliament that will make it illegal to reprogram the identity of a cellphone. This will make it illegal to modify a handset that has been blocked by the networks and give it a "clean" identity. The BBC has reported this morning that the government will outline details supporting the bill, which would ensure that it is passed into law with the minimum of delay. The new bill proposes that offenders are sentenced to up to five years in jail for each offence. It is not immediately clear if the bill would specifically deal with reprogramming of IMEI's or if it will be widespread and simply deal with any unauthorized modifications. If it covers all unauthorized modifications, that could have an impact on the people who use hacking software to break the networks SIM locks and allow handsets to be used on any network. The move has been widely expected as part of a government crack down on street crime in the UK. With over 700,000 cellphones stolen last year in the UK, according to official figures, any moves to make cellphones less valuable to thieves would have a substantial impact on street crime numbers. However, as a large percentage of handsets are stolen for export overseas, where IMEI blocking is ineffective, this measure will only cut down on "casual" thieves and will do nothing to prevent organised crime from continuing to steal cellphones.

SOURCE - BBC Back to News Reports

Motorola and Bloomingdale's Offer a 'Rare Gem' of a Phone (Back to News Reports)

NEW YORK, Apr 30, 2002 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Motorola i90c Limited Edition Phone with Pearlized Finish is Latest Mobile Phone to be Sold at Bloomingdale's Motorola (NYSE: MOT) and Bloomingdale's today announced the pearlized Motorola i90c Limited Edition phone, the latest in a series of limited edition Motorola mobile phones to be offered by Bloomingdale's. This pearly white flip phone is a sophisticated communications device that's also an elegant fashion accessory. "After the success of the translucent Motorola i90c Limited Edition phone, we wanted to offer Bloomingdale's customers something new and different," said Peter Aloumanis, vice president and general manager of the U.S. Markets Division, Motorola's iDEN(R) Subscriber Group. "With its pearlized finish and silver colored trim, this phone is sleek, elegant and stylish, while also offering the most advanced features such as a two-way radio, speakerphone, musical ring tones, and downloadable games." "Bloomingdale's customers are fashion-conscious consumers who want to express their personal style through both their clothing and their personal electronic devices," said Anne Keating, senior vice president of Bloomingdale's. "The pearlized Motorola i90c Limited Edition mobile phone is a stylish alternative for the customer who wants something different." The pearly white Motorola i90c Limited Edition wireless phone is a compact 3.5 x 1.9 x 1.1 inches (89 x 48 x 28 mm) and weighs just four ounces (113 g). Features include blue backlighting that makes it stand out in dimly lit environments, dual displays that show Caller ID on the outside of the phone, voice recognition, and voice recording. Ten selectable musical files and ten selectable ring tones allow users to personalize the ring style with rich polyphonic sound. Users can customize the phone by wirelessly downloading applications, such as games and productivity tools, to meet their individual needs. Pre-installed applications include Checkers, Blackjack, Video Poker, Calculator, and Unit Converter. The Motorola i90c Limited Edition handset will be available beginning this week at select Bloomingdale's stores in New York City, Huntington Station, White Plains, and Garden City, New York; Hackensack, Wayne, and Bridgewater, New Jersey; Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles. It will be also featured in the Bloomingdale's Mother's Day catalog. Suggested retail price is $399. Service for this phone can be activated on the Nextel National Network. For more information on purchasing the pearlized Motorola i90c Limited Edition phone, please call (212) 705-3030.

SOURCE Motorola, Inc. Back to News Reports