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Vodafone Japan prepares for super-charged 3G
Staff and agencies
15 September, 2005

http://www.leadingthecharge.com/stories/news-0072742.html



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TOKYO - Vodafone K.K., the struggling Japan unit of UK-based mobile phone giant Vodafone Group Plc, is preparing a new super-charged data service as it revs up spending on its network, an executive said on Thursday.

The company became Japan‘s first to start testing out a high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) service late last year, John Thompson, chief technology officer of Vodafone K.K., said at the Reuters Asia Technology and Telecoms Summit.

"We have not said anything about when we start," he said at the event at the Reuters office in Tokyo. "We are preparing our networks in Tokyo now. The test is going well."

HSDPA is a next-step technology developed for use over networks based on WCDMA, the world‘s most popular third-generation (3G) mobile standard.

It effectively turbocharges WCDMA networks, allowing for data transfers at up to 14 megabits per second, or several times faster than existing capabilities, and providing a critical boost for such data-intensive services as music downloads and video streaming.

Vodafone had about 15 million Japanese subscribers at the end of July, compared with 49.7 million customers at NTT DoCoMo Inc. and 20.4 million at KDDI Corp.‘s "au" unit.

DoCoMo has previously said it planned to roll out its own HSDPA service next year.

A third company, eAccess Ltd., said it would build a network with HSDPA capability if it received one of the three mobile licences that Japan is expected to issue later this year.

The government plans to grant the licences before introducing a number-portability rule in 2006, making it easier to switch providers by letting users take their phone numbers with them.

Thompson said the move to number portability should help shake up the industry, where many subscribers may have remained loyal to their carriers to avoid losing their phone numbers when they switched networks.

The new portability, coupled with the addition of new mobile licences, could also boost the handset industry, he said.

"There will be more handsets (developed), more sales," he said. "It will be a very active market for around a year or so."

Competition in the industry is getting tougher as Japan approaches saturation, with about 88.6 million Japanese, or 70 percent of the population, owning mobile phones.

The Japan Vodafone unit is trying to recover from a tumultuous period in which sales of its highly anticipated 3G phones fell flat, its leadership changed twice in a year and it posted an industry-record monthly loss of customers in January.

The company‘s investment in its network also dropped from 2003 to 2004.

In the current year, however, capital spending is returning to the growth column, with an expected rise of about 40 percent from last year, Thompson said.

"Out strategy is to make up for that slow year and fill in the weak spots on our network," he said.