THE BRIDGE

tag LTE

Japan’s mobile wars intensify: Docomo moves up ultra-high speed data launch to 2015

SHARE:

We noted yesterday that even though NTT Docomo (TSE:9437) had reached 10 million LTE subscribers, it still lags behind its competitors in speed. And today – as if on cue – the telco has reportedly moved up the scheduled launch of its ultra high-speed mobile data service to 2015, according to the Asahi Shimbun. This new service will adhere to the LTE Advanced standard, and it was expected to launch in 2016. But with intensifying competition against the other major Japanese telecoms, KDDI and Softbank Mobile, it appears as though the Docomo has decided to kick it up a notch. The new mobile data standard will enable a maximum speed of 1Gbps, which is five times faster than the current LTE service in Japan. That will allow subscribers to make the most of their smartphone subscription, able to consume a variety of rich media content on mobile, such as BeeTV [1] , d-Market Video Store (inaccessible outside Japan), Hulu, and interpretation services. In a recent report by UK consultation company Open Signal, Japan was (disgracefully) ranked the worst in the mobile data speeds out of the nine countries in the study. BeeTV is an IP-based TV service for Docomo’s subcscribers, in partnership with music…

docomo_lte-advanced

We noted yesterday that even though NTT Docomo (TSE:9437) had reached 10 million LTE subscribers, it still lags behind its competitors in speed. And today – as if on cue – the telco has reportedly moved up the scheduled launch of its ultra high-speed mobile data service to 2015, according to the Asahi Shimbun.

This new service will adhere to the LTE Advanced standard, and it was expected to launch in 2016. But with intensifying competition against the other major Japanese telecoms, KDDI and Softbank Mobile, it appears as though the Docomo has decided to kick it up a notch.

The new mobile data standard will enable a maximum speed of 1Gbps, which is five times faster than the current LTE service in Japan. That will allow subscribers to make the most of their smartphone subscription, able to consume a variety of rich media content on mobile, such as BeeTV [1] , d-Market Video Store (inaccessible outside Japan), Hulu, and interpretation services.

In a recent report by UK consultation company Open Signal, Japan was (disgracefully) ranked the worst in the mobile data speeds out of the nine countries in the study.

Source: Open Signal, Inc.  http://opensignal.com/reports/state-of-lte/
Source: Open Signal


  1. BeeTV is an IP-based TV service for Docomo’s subcscribers, in partnership with music company Avex, actor/entertainer agency HoriPro, and Fuji Television.  ↩

Despite slower speeds, NTT Docomo quick to surpass 10 million LTE subscribers

SHARE:

Japanese carrier NTT Docomo (NYSE:DCM) has just announced that it has surpassed 10 million LTE subscriber milestone. This comes after the company topped the five million subscriber mark back in August of 2012. Docomo initially launched its ‘Xi’ LTE service back in December of 2010, much earlier than its rivals Softbank and KDDI, both of which launched their own LTE services in September of last year respectively. However, according to a recent global LTE report from OpenSignal.com, Docomo’s LTE network lags behind its competitors in terms of speed. Softbank boasts 16.2 Mbps, and KDDI is close behind at 14.8 Mbps — but the report says that Docomo’s speeds were by far the slowest at 5.5 Mbps. Nevertheless, Docomo appears to be collecting customers at a reasonable enough speed, as you can see in our interactive chart below. Download image version of this chart

Japanese carrier NTT Docomo (NYSE:DCM) has just announced that it has surpassed 10 million LTE subscriber milestone. This comes after the company topped the five million subscriber mark back in August of 2012.

Docomo initially launched its ‘Xi’ LTE service back in December of 2010, much earlier than its rivals Softbank and KDDI, both of which launched their own LTE services in September of last year respectively.

However, according to a recent global LTE report from OpenSignal.com, Docomo’s LTE network lags behind its competitors in terms of speed. Softbank boasts 16.2 Mbps, and KDDI is close behind at 14.8 Mbps — but the report says that Docomo’s speeds were by far the slowest at 5.5 Mbps.

Nevertheless, Docomo appears to be collecting customers at a reasonable enough speed, as you can see in our interactive chart below.

Download image version of this chart