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DoCoMo Eyes 5-Fold Rise in 3G Phone Speed
NTT DoCoMo plans to adopt a communications method in 2005 to raise the data transmission speed of its FOMA 3G mobile phone service by more than five times, President Keiji Tachikawa said Thursday. At the moment, FOMA service offers a maximum communications speed of 384 kbps. A method called high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) will offer an average speed of 2 Mbps and a maximum rate of 14 Mbps, Tachikawa said. The HSDPA method is an upgraded version of the W-CDMA 3G standard format.
Read the full story on: FOMA to go even faster by 2005
Intel Funds Chinese, Korean Firms in Wi-Fi Push
On paper at least, IPone and Ocamar Technologies may look like the hundreds of other Asian tech start-ups looking for a breakthrough. Each employs less than 100 people, the former in Seoul and the latter in Shanghai, and neither has eye-popping revenues. But the pair are at the cutting edge of what chip giant Intel Corp. and others in the computer industry, hope will be a high-tech revolution that sees more and more people surfing the Web using laptop computers with wireless connections. This week the two became the first East Asian Wi-Fi firms to receive money from Intel, which has now funded about a dozen such companies worldwide, said Claude Leglise, vice president of Intel Capital, in an interview at the companys Hong Kong office. Leglise would not disclose the size of Intels first East Asian Wi-Fi investments, but said amounts typically ranged between $1 million and $10 million.
Read the full story on: Yahoo! News
FCC Imposes e911 Fine On T-Mobile
T-Mobile USA Inc. last week agreed to pay a fine of $1.1 million for failing to deploy wireless enhanced 911 services on its GSM network in a manner consistent with a waiver it received in 2000. The consent decree wraps up the outstanding issues regarding the use of enhanced observed time difference (EOTD) technology for E911. EOTD is a hybrid network/handset-based technology for GSM systems that never met the location benchmarks in the Federal Communications Commissions rules. In addition to agreeing to the fine, T-Mobile agreed to a schedule that allows it nearly two years to deploy network-based technology to those public-safety answering points that have requested the service. If it misses these deadlines it could face millions of dollars in additional fines.
Read the full story on: RCR Wireless News
Japan Firms to Test Radio-Tagged Luggage
Singapores Changi, Amsterdams Schiphol and New Yorks John F. Kennedy International airports will later this year take part in an experiment testing radio-tagged luggage. The test is part of a plan by a newly formed consortium of Japanese firms to promote RFID (radio frequency identification) tags on passenger luggage, according to a report on Nikkei Electronics News. This “hands-free” delivery of luggage will be tested this year by the new Advanced Airport Systems Technology Research Consortium. It comprises 58 Japanese transport-related and electronics firms such as the Narita Airport Authority, Japan Airlines (JAL), All Nippon Airways (ANA), Omron, Dai Nippon Printing, Fujitsu and Matsushita Electric.
Read the full story on: CNET News.com
Kensington WiFi Finder Helps Locate Hotspots
Computer peripheral maker Kensington has introduced an alternative for users looking for Wi-Fi connections when theyre on the road: The WiFi Finder, a handheld wireless network detector that works completely independently of your computer. The pocket-sized device measures about 2.95 x 0.39 x 2.17 inches, and sports a button that you depress to activate. A three light display indicates signal strength.
Read the full story on: MacCentral