Slashdot Mirror

Mark.JUK writes: Global Chinese ICT firm Huawei and Japanese mobile giant NTT DOCOMO today claim to have conducted the world's first large-scale field trial of future 5th generation (5G) mobile broadband technology, which was able to deliver a peak speed of 3.6Gbps (Gigabits per second). Previous trials have used significantly higher frequency bands (e.g. 20-80GHz), which struggle with coverage and penetration through physical objects. By comparison Huawei's network operates in the sub-6GHz frequency band and made use of several new technologies, such as Multi-User MIMO (concurrent connectivity of 24 user devices in the macro-cell environment), Sparse Code Multiple Access (SCMA) and Filtered OFDM (F-OFDM). Assuming all goes well then Huawei hopes to begin a proper pilot in 2018, with interoperability testing being completed during 2019 and then a commercial launch to follow in 2020. But of course they're not the only team trying to develop a 5G solution.

Mark.JUK (1222360) writes "Japanese mobile operator NTT DOCOMO has announced that they'll make use of Ericsson's advanced antenna technologies and radio base stations in order to conduct one of the world's first trials of a possible 5G based Mobile Broadband technology in Yokosuka (Japan), which aims to deliver downstream speeds of more than 10 Gigabits per second using the 15GHz radio spectrum frequency. But this is just one possible candidate for 5G connectivity and many organizations are still working to try and define an official standard, while most countries don't expect the first services to be deployed until around the year 2020."

i4u writes "NTT DoCoMo announced today that it will introduce it's first Global Positioning Service (GPS)-compatible handset F661i, at the end of April. The GPS mobile phone enables users to determine their location at the touch of a button, and download location specific information via i-mode like graphical maps and other interesting information about the area. This is not like the GPS functionality that the US Phone companies introduced so far. In the US the GPS coordinates are only used for emergencies and not yet for actually providing value to the user in other situations. Users of the F661i can send their current location to other i-mode enabled phones. In addition, a memo function allows users to store location information, including map, telephone numbers and addresses. The phone supports three applications of the GPS functionality: 1)The GPS enabled Phone can be tracked by via a service, useful for instance for parents to track their kids. See also the Wherify GPS Person Locator. 2)Submission of current location in case of emergency to pre-defined organizations, like police, fire departments etc. Similar to the GPS functionality available in the US. 3)The F661i also can be used by businesses to track their delivery trucks and more. Similar to Car GPS devices."

i4u writes "NTT DoCoMo announced WRISTOMO a new Wrist Phone built by Seiko. Recently Samsung announced the availability of their Wrist Phone at the CeBit 2003. The Wristomo Wrist Phone unique design lets users transform it into a handset. The phone supports web browsing with up to 64kbps. Wristomo can receive and transmit Emails with maximum size of 3,000 characters. The Watch can synchronize with MS Outlook via a data cable. The size of the Wrist Phone is 171.5x40.4x18.5mm, and it's weight is 113g. It is even water-proof. It supports continous talk-time for 120min. and 200 min. standby. It is even water-proof! Price expected to be 50,000yen."

Lawrence_Bird writes "In a first, a Japanese district court has ordered a spammer to pay restitution to NTT DoCoMo for abuse of their imode system. 'The damage caused by large amounts of e-mail not reaching their destinations should be covered by the sender,' said the judge. The fine is about $55,000 and was based on an estimated cost to NTT of 1.2 yen per undelivered spam ($0.01) for the 4 million spams that were undeliverable. What is most startling is NTT DoCoMo assertion that of the 950 million emails they receive each day, 880 million are not deliverable!"

Scott_Marks writes: "In the fine tradition of the previously-reported finger-phone, DoCoMo has brought out their Eggy! The Babelfish translation is, as usual, a total hoot." I'm a little confused about what this thing will do to your poor "knitting machine," but imagine a baby-blue Nintendo controller with a built in camera, a small LCD and a nice chunk of RAM, equipped with a Web browser. And for anyone who laughs at the fingerphone, I had a chance to use one of these in October courtesy of a DoCoMo representative in Atlanta, and called home with surprizing clarity. So maybe this little thing isn't so crazy ...

Scott_Marks writes: "In the fine tradition of the previously-reported finger-phone, DoCoMo has brought out their Eggy! The Babelfish translation is, as usual, a total hoot." I'm a little confused about what this thing will do to your poor "knitting machine," but imagine a baby-blue Nintendo controller with a built in camera, a small LCD and a nice chunk of RAM, equipped with a Web browser. And for anyone who laughs at the fingerphone, I had a chance to use one of these in October courtesy of a DoCoMo representative in Atlanta, and called home with surprizing clarity. So maybe this little thing isn't so crazy ...