Put on your engineering caps, it’s time for acronyms. Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) has announced that they’re entering trial stages for a new large-scale integration chip which will meet next generation Long Term Evolution standards using Multiple Input/Multiple Output technologies to achieve target speeds.

“What the hell did he just say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well crap, we better nod, or he’ll think we’re dumb.”
“Right.”
*nods all around*

Let’s take a look at some of the technologies involved here.

LSI: Large-Scale Integration

According to the All-Knowing Wikipedia:

…Further development, driven by the same economic factors, led to “Large-Scale Integration” (LSI) in the mid 1970s, with tens of thousands of transistors per chip. Integrated circuits such as 1K-bit RAMs, calculator chips, and the first microprocessors, that began to be manufactured in moderate quantities in the early 1970s, had under 4000 transistors. True LSI circuits, approaching 10000 transistors, began to be produced around 1974, for computer main memories and second-generation microprocessors.

In Plain English:

More transistors = handling more electrical signals = faster data flow.

MIMO: Multiple-Input/Multiple Output

According to He With All Answers Googleable:

In radio, multiple-input and multiple-output, or MIMO (pronounced mee-moh or my-moh), is the use of multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver to improve communication performance. It is one of several forms of smart antenna technology.

In Plain English:

More antennae = more information coming and going = faster data flow.

LTE: Long-Term Evolution

According to The Fount of All Editable Knowledge:

(Long Term Evolution) is the name given to a project within the Third Generation Partnership Project to improve the UMTS mobile phone standard to cope with future technology evolutions. Goals include improving spectral efficiency, lowering costs, improving services, making use of new spectrum and refarmed spectrum opportunities, and better integration with other open standards.

In Plain English:

Rules for carriers = networks upgraded = faster data flow.

This new chip should be able to hit 100 Mbps on mobile phones (quite the jump from current 7.2 Mbps on HSPA) while gobbling up a scant 0.04 W of power, which is impressive, but previous tests using MIMO had DoCoMo running upwards 250 MBps. They’ve been talking about getting this thing rolling since at least the last CTIA, so so maybe we’ll see some more working examples at CES…

For the more technically-minded, be sure to hit up the press release below for the real nitty-gritty.

[via DoCoMo]

So this is the kind of MVNO deal Nokia was preparing for Japan. Their luxury arm, Vertu, announced that they have signed an MVNO deal with NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) to provide communication services to Vertu customers. Beginning from Q2 2009, Vertu will start operating its service under the name VERTU Club.

In addition, Nokia (NYSE: NOK)-owned company also said they’ll open its first Ginza Flagship Store in Japan, where interested customers will be able to pre-order handsets and get them delivered once VERTU Club goes live. Moreover, impatient customers (those that can’t wait for VERTY Club) will be able to buy select unlocked Vertu phones — including Ascent Ti, Ascent Ti Ferrari and Signature models.

Japan’s Vertu Ginza Flagship Store will be the company’s 19th store in the world to be directly operated by Vertu.

Guess you’ve all heard Nokia is leaving Japan, leaving only its luxury handset division Vertu behind. Well, due to such decision by the Finnish giant, the leading Japanese mobile operator, NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM), announced that it has cancelled its planned launch of the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) E71.

In November, DoCoMo announced Nokia’s QWERTY keyboard-equipped smartphone along with 21 other handsets. The E71 was scheduled for launch sometime between February and March 2009.

One thing we wonder though, maybe this is part of Nokia’s strategy to push its handsets through its MVNO operation in Japan, only, if they ever enter such venture. Guess the time will tell…

Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) has elaborated on the Android handset due to drop in 2009 announced in October. South Korean service provider, KTF, will also be carrying the device, purportedly for 20% less than the usual cost of smartphones due to savings from using Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s free operating system. We had already seen what doors are opened by a free OS through basement entrepreneurs like Australia-based Kogan, but as seen by these savings, larger operators are in a good position to slash prices on their phones and rope in a wider audience.

UPDATE: KTF is denying any collaboration with DoCoMo on this particular project.

[via Reuters]

Holy crap. Who does that? Seriously! Twenty-two handsets in one batch? That’s just crazy-talk. Well, it’s not really one batch – these phones will be released between now and March in Japan through NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM), but that is still one helluva release schedule. Here’s the whole lineup, broken into subcategories, with release dates.

Style series

• F-02A: December 2008
• N-02A: November to December 2008
• N-03A: November 2008
• P-02A: January to March 2009
• P-03A: December 2008 to January 2009
• SH-02A: December 2008 to January 2009

Prime series

• F-01A: November 19, 2008 (fixed)
• F-03A: January to March 2009
• L-01A: November to December 2008
• N-01A: November 2008
• P-01A: November 2008
• SH-01A: November 2008
• SH-03A: December 2008

Smart series

• F-04A: February to March 2009
• N-04A: January to March 2009
• P-04A: February to March 2009
• P-05A: February to March 2009

Pro series

• HT-01A: November to December 2008
• HT-02A: December 2008 to January 2009
• SH-04A: February to March 2009
• BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM)® Bold™: February to March 2009
• NOKIA (NYSE: NOK) E71: February to March 2009

Given they’re mostly plain flips with the odd slider thrown in for flavour, the Pro series is looking especially nice with the HTC Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, BlackBerry Bold, Nokia E71 and Touch Pro knock-off from Sharp.On the whole, it’s a pretty crazy lineup, and must be some kind of record, somewhere.

[via DoCoMo]

Japanese carrier NTT Docomo (NYSE: DCM) is stretching westards towards India by entering into a strategic alliance with Tata Teleservices. For US$2.7 billion Docomo bought 26% of TTSL’s common shares as a part of the deal. Tata Teleservices had sparked a whole review of national security last spring when they tried to start supporting BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) services, but discovered some holes in the government’s ability to intercept transmissions back to RIM’s servers. Otherwise, Tata plays second fiddle to Reliance and Bharti Airtel in the market, but that could quickly change as one of Japan’s biggest players gets into the Indian ring.

[Docomo via Slashphone]

Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) is working with Fujitsu (OTCPK: FJTSY), Sharp and Reneas to make an HSUPA-compatible handset for a 2010 release. The SH-Mobile G4 will boast 5.7 Mbps uplink speeds, which is quite the jump from our current 384kbps. HSUPA is the Yin to HSDPA’s Yang – offering upload speeds that match download. HSDPA is considerably more widespread, but by enabling faster upload speeds, stuff like transmitting live streaming mobile video can become more popular and, for those existing services, higher quality.

Samsung was the first to bring this kind of handset to market with the SCH-M470, but more networks are supporting the technology, and accordingly many more phones will be following. It’s generally easy to think of mobile data usage as a one-way street, but with HSUPA and other high-speed uplink networks gathering steam, I think we’ll have some very interesting doors opening. What do you think – is mobile video the biggest thing to gain from faster upload speeds, or are there other, more impressive possibilities?

[via DoCoMo]

In an effort to stave off competition from KDDI and Softbank (OTCPK: SFTBF), Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) has announced that Android will have a spot among the ten smartphones they aim to release next year. Due within the first half of 2009, there’s no word if it will be the same G1 launched on T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) two weeks back, although it’s likely considering how closeby HTC factories are. China also has plans to get Android rolling by 2009, likely around Q2, and are even more likely to adopt a preexisting HTC design. Whether or not DoCoMo and China Mobile (NYSE: CHL) will be offering some new Android hardware is uncertain, but I’m sure we’d like to see something new to give the platform a little more spice. As is, the G1’s form factor has more than a couple of people grimacing.

[Taipei Times via Talk Android]

Probably the coolest thing out of CEATEC is this new, fully-functional separating phone from NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) dubbed appropriately Separate Keitai (handset). By communicating via Bluetooth, you can pull this phone apart and keep talking on one end while doing business on the other. Magnets make it highly reconfigurable and provide some very imaginative possibilities. The touchscreen seems sharp enough in action and handles video just fine, but details (beyond it running Symbian S60) are hard to come by. According to representatives, “This is a concept model so we have not decided a schedule for practical application.” Even if it were getting ready for production, don’t expect this one overseas anytime soon, like most fun oriental gadgets.

[via AkihabraNews]

More pictures and videos of Fujitsu (OTCPK: FJTSY)/DoCoMo’s mystery device behind the jump!

While it might feel like it’s taking awhile for the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) 9000 to hit American shores, Japan isn’t slated to get the Bold until early 2009 through NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM). The orient has proven to be a tricky market for RIM, with language, cultural and competitive barriers to overcome, but the BlackBerry Bold is a big player, and RIM VP Don Morrison seems to think the Japanese enterprise space is “an essentially still wide open market” ripe for the picking once localization is completed. The Bold is packing Wi-Fi, GPS, 3G, a HVGA screen, full QWERTY keypad in a candybar format, and could potentially set the foundation for RIM’s other upcoming models (like the Flip Pearl, the new Curve, and the Storm) in Japan.

[via Reuters]