Yuki's Web

Tag: NTT DoCoMo

  • My current mobile devices

    I bought Blackberry Curve 9300 in the middle of June for my main mobile phone I’m using daily and switched an account from b-mobile into NTT DoCoMo again by the Mobile Number Portability service. The b-mobile SIM card was what I got together with an iPhone 4 Hong Kong version. Still, the iPhone 4 was not so good for a telephone because its voice quality was not satisfactory and the manoeuvre was a little bit complicating. It’s just for web browsing, taking pictures and motion videos, playing games, and other utilities, not for talking. I think the best device for voice calls is that of Nokia, but Nokia doesn’t sell any mobile phones in Japan any longer. Out of the phones available in Japan, Blackberry is for me. That’s why I’ve got Blackberry again.

    Another reason why I chose Blackberry again is that it has a real QWERTY keyboard on the device, not displayed on the screen. You can type the keyboard to enter text, and doing this is much easier than touching the virtual keyboard on the screen. So I’m gonna use it for text messaging and email writing besides talking on it. Text messaging will be much more convenient because sending SMS to other carriers will be available next Wednesday.

    Although the iPhone is not so good for a telephone, it’s best for a camera and a communicator with plenty of applications. I’ve got a Softbank SIM card too, so I still use iPhone4 used so far on the main basis with the Softbank SIM card inserted in it.

    Now I’ve got three mobile phones carried with me —- Blackberry Curve 9300, iPhone 4, and a mobile phone, my employer, tells me to keep. Next, I want to have some tablets like iPad or Galaxy Tab 😉

  • Japan’s mobile environment today

    Sorry for not updating the blog for a long time. These days I’m hanging out on Facebook and Twitter, rather than writing blog entries. Please visit my Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/masayuki.kawagishi or follow @_Yuki_K_ on Twitter 😉

    I see that the world of mobile phones is rapidly changing for years. Nokia, one of the dominant mobile phone manufacturers, is disappearing, and Apple is expanding the market with the iPhone, its flagship mobile phones with a music player, games, and other applications all-in-one. Following apple, various mobile phone manufacturers, from Samsung to small makers in China, are releasing smartphones with the Android operating system developed by Google.

    In Japan, I think that mobile phones are rapidly “globalised” in recent years. A few years ago all you could see here was the “Galapagos” handphones sold only within Japan and unavailable once you brought them out of Japan. But recently on the train or the streets, you see the same devices as those seen in the rest of the world — iPhones, Android smartphones, and even Blackberry phones (scarce though).

    More than that, this month I had good news showing Japan’s globalisation of the mobile phone environment. News says that from 13 July this year you can send text messages (SMS) to the mobile phones of the different carriers from yours. That is normal in the rest of the world, but that isn’t here in Japan — if you have a mobile phone sold by NTT DoCoMo, you can send SMS only to NTT DoCoMo users, not to au, Softbank, or any other carrier’s users. As the SMS gateways are closed to different carriers, you can rarely see here such services as balance enquiry, network configurations, service registrations, and purchasing something by sending text messages to service providers as you can see in Singapore, Hong Kong or some European countries. The opening of the SMS gateways will probably enable you to have such services even in Japan soon.

    Japan and the countries other than Japan don’t stand in the opposite. Japan is an extension of other countries, and any country is an extension of Japan. Anything available in the world must be available in Japan too.

  • Presentation by Ryuji Yamada / ＮＴＴ　ＤｏＣｏＭｏ山田社長の講演

    Presentation by Ryuji Yamada / ＮＴＴ　ＤｏＣｏＭｏ山田社長の講演

    日本文が後ろに続きます。

    Last night I attended a meeting for alumni of Osaka University, where I graduated, to see the presentation by Ryuji Yamada, President and CEO of NTT DoCoMo, one of Japan’s mobile phone operators. Mr. Yamada is also a graduate from Osaka University and was invited to this meeting as a guest speaker.

    He talked to us about NTT DoCoMo’s current circumstances, innovation plans and future strategies. He said in advance that the revenue from voice communications was decreasing year by year and so far the loss was not completely compensated yet by the revenue from packet communications, so innovations in packet communication was important. He also added that one of the important things right now was to change policies so as to meet the current situation where mobile communication market in Japan was reaching its full maturity. He said that he had launched the “All-DoCoMo Reform Plans”, where more than 3000 current problems had been collected from every workplace, ranging from R&D divisions to local shops, and the problems had been dealt with 25 project teams for discussion and improvement. Some of the problems were solved by the plans. One of the solutions is a special assurance plan to dispatch an on-site consultant engineer to the customer who complained of dissatisfied signal reception at home, within 48 hours from the time of this customer’s complaint call.

    The most impressive point of his presentation was that mobile devices will be tools for personal activity assistance. Since the first era of them, YOU have done something with them, from voice communications to internet access and electronic wallets. In the future, THEY will do something for you. They will proactively help you do something. One of such solutions already in service is the “i-Concier”, where text messages such as traffic information, weather information, and local event information, are automatically displayed on mobile phone’s screen, according to date, time and phone’s location obtained from antennas communicating with the phone.

    Media for information distribution is, according to his speech, shifting from text-based message to motion videos. He said that, as smart phones was being more and more popular, video would be the key media used for not only entertainment but tourist information, online shopping, navigation, security and medical assistance.

    For such advanced services by smart phones, high network performance is necessary. Mr. Yamada declared that in December 2010 NTT DoCoMo would launch Long Term Evolution, or LTE, a 3.9-generation mobile telephony service, starting with that for the 2GHz band and to extend to that for the 1.5GHz band, and would offer 3G/LTE-dual handsets next year. With LTE terminals, radiowaves can be used approximately 9 times more efficient than current 3G terminals. That is, you can enjoy 9 times smarter services than today’s phones.

    To prevent NTT DoCoMo’s LTE system from making the Galapagos ecosystem, he emphasized that NTT DoCoMo also did international activities more energetically than ever. It founded research and development facilities in Beijing, Europe and the United States, for contribution to standardisation and normalisation in the projects of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, or 3GPP. At the same time, it’s investing developing countries’ operators like TTSL and TTML in India, in order to help do business with it.

    It’s greatly welcomed that mobile services will evolve to be more advanced and attractive for users. My hope is, as written in the last entry, to accept any terminal I want to use, as long as it meets the basic standards.

    ＮＴＴドコモの山田隆持社長の講演を聞いてきました。山田社長は私の卒業した大学の大先輩ということで、大学のＯＢ会の総会に特別講師として来ていただいたのでした。
    ＯＢの総会なんて普段はほとんど人が集まらないんですが、ドコモの社長の講演があるということで今年は例年にない動員数だそうです。

    ということで、山田社長にモバイル業界の動向やドコモの今後の取り組みについて熱く語っていただきました。

    まず、音声通話の収入は年とともに減少していっているとのことで、それをパケット通信の収入では十分に補いきれていない、だからパケット収入が今後の重要な鍵になるとおっしゃっていました。日本の携帯業界は成熟期に移行しつつあるということで、それに応じた方針転換のための「変革とチャレンジ」に今取り組んでいるそうです。その一環として「全ドコモ改革」プランを立ち上げ、研究開発部門から街のドコモショップの現場に至るまで全職場から３０００個の課題を拾い上げ、それを２５のプロジェクトに分けて議論・解決に向けて取り組んでいるとのこと。そのうちの１つが「48時間以内の訪問対応」。家の中で電波の入りが悪いなどで苦情を言ってきたお客様のもとへ48時間以内にエンジニアを派遣して対応するといったものです。

    一番印象的だったのは、携帯端末はこれから「行動支援」のツールになりつつあるということ。これまでは、通話機能だけからメールができるようになり、ネットにアクセスできるようになり、おさいふケータイが使えるようになっていったりなど、「ケータイで〜ができる」ことを充実させていったんですが、これからは「ケータイが〜してくれる」ツールになるとのこと。その１つの例が「ｉコンシェル」で、これは端末の日時と位置情報に応じて交通情報や気象情報、近所のイベント情報などが自動的に画面にメッセージとして表示される機能です。

    山田社長によると、情報配信はこれから動画にシフトしていくとのこと。スマートフォンがこれから高機能になればなるほど、動画はエンタテインメントのみならず観光情報や通販、ナビ、警備、医療などの分野でキーとなるだろうとおっしゃっていました。

    そのために、ネットワークのこれまでの３Ｇから、２０１０年１２月には３．９ＧのＬＴＥサービスを２ＧＨｚ帯から始め、１．５ＧＨｚ帯に拡大し、さらに３Ｇとのデュアル端末（電話機）を２０１１年以降に出すと宣言されました。ＬＴＥだと、電波の利用効率が３Ｇの９倍になるとのことで、つまり今の携帯よりも９倍賢いことができるということです。

    ガラパゴス化を避けるため、ドコモは北京と欧州と米国に研究開発拠点を置き、３ＧＰＰの標準化、規格化にも精力的に取り組んでいるとのこと。またインドのＴＴＳＬ社／ＴＴＭＬ社に投資をし海外連携も進めているとのことです。
    携帯業界の大御所の方も、居並ぶＯＢを前にしてはすっかり「大阪のおっちゃん」の語り口。まあ魅力的なサービスがどんどん増えてくれるのは利用者としてはありがたい限りですが、前にも書いたように規格に適合している限り使いたい端末は何でも使えるようにしてもらいたいものです。

  • Unlocking my Blackberry / ブラックベリーのＳＩＭロック外し

    Unlocking my Blackberry / ブラックベリーのＳＩＭロック外し

    日本文が後ろに続きます。

    I’ve made my Blackberry Bold SIM-unlocked, because the Blackberry I bought in Japan was locked to NTT DoCoMo, a Japanese mobile phone carrier, so when I was abroad I had to fear the phone bill charging highly expensive roaming prices.

    Unlocking was easy: I got an unlock code for my device at http://expressunlockcode.com/bbexpress.aspx by paying $19.99 and giving the IMEI for my device, phone model, carrier name locked to and my country to the unlock code provider. Several hours later from paying I got an unlock code for the IMEI I gave. Then I unlocked it by following the instructions at http://www.mobileslate.com/blog/2008/11/14/how-to-unlock-rim-blackberry-9000-bold/. Once unlocked, you can use not only NTT DoCoMo’s SIM card but Softbank’s, as shown in the above picture.

    (Blackberry services aren’t available with Softbank’s SIM card, though)

    今持ってるブラックベリーはドコモのＳＩＭロックがかかっているので、そのまま海外に持って行って使うとドコモの高いローミング料金におびえなければなりません。ということでＳＩＭロックを外しちゃいました。

    ＳＩＭロックを外す手順はネット上に簡単にころがってます。まずhttp://expressunlockcode.com/bbexpress.aspxで１９．９９ドルを払い自分の端末用の解除コードを入手します（その時、自分の端末のＩＭＥＩ、電話機の機種、ロックがかかっているキャリア名（ＮＴＴ　ＤｏＣｏＭｏ）、国名（日本）を入力します）。支払いはＰａｙｐａｌで行うので、数時間後にＰａｙｐａｌのメールアドレス宛に解除コードが送られてきます。次にここの手順に従ってＳＩＭロックを解除します。解除後は冒頭の写真のようにソフトバンクのＳＩＭカードも認識してくれるようになりました（ブラックベリーのプッシュメールサービスは使えませんでしたが・・・）。

    これで海外に持って行ったときは現地のプリペイドＳＩＭカードに差し替えて現地キャリアのデータ定額サービスとブラックベリーサービスを契約すれば（現地キャリアのプリペイドＳＩＭカードはこういうことが簡単にできる）現地料金で使えるようになるはずです。

    言うまでもないことですが実際に試す際は自己責任でお願いします。
    参考サイト：http://markion.vox.com/library/post/blackberry-9000-bold-のsimロック解除.html

  • I got Blackberry! / Blackberryをゲット

    My Blackberry
    日本文が後ろに続きます。

    The nearest DoCoMo Shop had informed me that a new Blackberry device (Blackberry 8707h) had arrived, so I got there this Monday and bought it. The handset costed 28,000 Yen. Very reasonable.

    Setup is very easy. I keep three of my email addresses (including Blackberry-specific one) in this handset. I can catch incoming mails and reply to them, wherever I am. The key strokes are very confortable. Even if you type long emails your thumbs won’t get tired.

    I’m not saying that I got completely accustomed to this gadget right now, but soon I will. This must soon become the item that I can’t do without, as many Americans may think.

    8月からいよいよ個人向けにリリースされたドコモのブラックベリーを手に入れようと10日にドコモショップ大手町支店で端末予約をしていたのですが、予約時には入荷日未定と言われていたのが13日になったらはや入荷したという連絡が入ったので、実家から帰京した今日、さっそく大手町支店に出向いて入手しました。端末の価格は28,000円。当初の予定（30,000円）より少しだけ安くなったような気がします。

    さっそくGmailの自分のメールアカウントをブラックベリー端末にセットして読めるようにしたのですが、なんと、ややこしいIMAPサーバの設定やポートの設定など一切しなくとも、自動的にブラックベリー端末側（とブラックベリー網側？）でそういった項目は設定してくれるようで、メールアドレスとパスワードさえ端末に設定すれば、もうGmailアカウントのメールの読み書きはできてしまうという優れもの。これならパソコンに疎い爺さん婆さんでも簡単にメールが使えるでしょう。→【2008/8/19追記】ちょっとやり方が違っていたようで、GmailのIMAPの設定はやはり専用の画面があるようです。

    キータッチも絶妙な配置で、NOKIA E61に較べれば打ちやすさは極上。これなら長いメールでもいくらでも書けます。なるほど世のアメリカ人たちがCrackberryといわれるほどブラックベリーにのめりこむわけがわかってきたような気がします。

    操作方法や入力方法は今まで（NOKIA方式）とくらべれば少し違うところがあるので、おいおい覚えていきながら、使いこなしたいと思います。

  • Blackberry to be released to Japanese individuals in August / Blackberryを日本でも個人向けに販売

    日本文が後ろに続きます。

    NTT DoCoMo, one of Japan’s major cell phone carriers, announced that in August this year it would sell Blackberry devices to public. NTT DoCoMo is the only carrier that has the right to distribute Blackberry in Japan.

    Although Blackberry is today an essential communications tool for those from businesspersons to general people in the world, Japan has been the only first-place country where no Blackberry services for individuals are currently available. The only exception is Blackberry Enterprise Service (BES) provided by NTT DoCoMo to corporations only, but BES is closed to private persons because NTT DoCoMo fears that Blackberry may affect the sales of I-mode, one of NTT DoCoMo’s core competences. There are no other mobile carriers that can offer Blackberry services, so Japanese people, except some lucky persons whose employer has BES for them, have no chance to enjoy communicating with the device.

    This announce means that NTT DoCoMo is opening the door to the world. The mobile services Japanese people are currently using have been closed within Japan. Most of them are cutting-edge, but are useless if you get outside this country. This opening of Blackberry will help Japanese people to get in touch with what people in the world are usually doing in their daily life.

    NTTドコモが、今まで法人向けに限定して販売していたBlackberryをいよいよ8月から個人にも開放するそうです。今さらという気もしないでもないですが、iPhoneでソフトバンクに先行され、なんとか対抗しなければという危機感の表れと思われます。少なくとも個人ユーザーとしては、今まで世界で当たり前にできていて日本でだけできなかったことが、やっと世界レベルに追いつけたということで、いいことだと思います。

    BISのサービスを提供するのか、どういうサービス形態で提供するのかはっきりしていませんが、とりあえず外出先でもPCのメールをプッシュ形式で取り込める、そしてその場でPCのアドレスで返信ができる、という最低限の機能だけは実現できるでしょう。

    出たら、私にとってはマストバイな機種です。価格がいくらになるかにもよりますが……。