This high profile Japanese operator has been instrumental in the development of new mobile technologies, especially the 3G global standard called UMTS.

Japan is one of the few countries where GSM is not supported (Korea being another notable exception). Their 2G system, called PDC, adopted many GSM elements but uses a different RF interface. UMTS 3G phones do work in Japan, but only with SoftBank (formerly Vodafone KK), who operate a 3G network using the global UMTS standard at the common 2100MHz frequency.

NTT DoCoMo pioneered the 3G UMTS standard and launched an early variant, called FOMA, which operates at 1500MHz.

The Japanese market is constrained by regulations which require any cellsite to be installed and maintained only by qualified personell. This leads to the strange situation where any householder cannot even switch the unit on and off without a visit from a technician. Operators are said to be lobbying hard for a change in the law to enable rollout of femtocells.

NTT DoCoMo's femtocell was developed and supplied by Mitsubishi, presumably to meet their specific requirements. It is likely this is compatible with FOMA phones rather than global compatible UMTS models. There has been very little publicity about this product, suggesting that this is really more of a trial than high volume commercial launch.

Initially launched in July 2007, a second model of the femtocell with much higher data rates up to 14.4Mbit/s was developed in September 2008. The service is branded "Home Access".

NTT DoCoMo have more publicly promoted their dual-mode WiFi service, which was re-launched Home U in May 2007. Some commentators suggest that femtocell testing has been continuing and dual-mode WiFi is more ready for commercial service at this stage.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed