The race to the next of mobile standards is gathering pace in Japan. "If you ask DoCoMo, they will tell you they have a 4G lab," says Bengt Nordstrom, chief strategy officer at inCode. But research is still in the very early stages.
Specification work for 3G LTE(long-term evolution) - also known as Super 3G- is under way, says Nordstrom. That will deliver a new core network architecture and air interface. "[Japanese operators] are investing heavily in that," DoCoMo in particular.
"DoCoMo is currently at the stage of testing the components and technologies that will constitute the 4G system," says spokesperson Miki Nakajima McCants. "DoCoMo is playing a leading role in research on the proposed 4G access system, but we are not yet at the developmet stage, nor are we collaborating with other operators."
Japan is making sure it is at the forefront of development of LTE and 4G, says Gavin Patterson, analyst at Informa. He points out that historically Asian vendors suffered from Japan's decision to adopt the proprietary PDC standard for 2G mobile services.
"[There's] only going to be one 4G standard," says Patterson, which means one key concern will be marrying legacy GSM with legacy CDMA.
"4G is considered by the industry to be the enhancement of radio network bandwidth," syas Hideo Okinaka, VP technical standars, at KDDI. "We do not ignore the importance of 4G in this definition, but we do not think a single radio interface meets any of [the] market requirements in the future."
KDDI is focusing on the Ultra3G initiative it announced in June 2005. Central to this is a transport core network based on IP version 6 and an IMS/MMD-based service control platform. KDDI is working to introduce Revision A by the end of this year.
"Initially we will use EV-Do Rev.A as a means to enhance reverse link bandwidth and capacity (154 kilobits per second to 1.3 Mbps)," says KKDI's Okinaka.
"The battle in Japan between KDDI and DoCoMo is already along technical lines," says Informa's Patterson.
If KDDI does not offer Revision A, subscribers might migrate to DoCoMo, and vice versa. There's not much they can do except "keep upgrading their network systems," says Patterson.
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