New Kid on the Japanese Mobile Block

February 21, 2007

The latest mobile carrier to join the thriving Japanese market will be EM Mobile Broadband, which says it will launch its services on 31st March this year. The operator announced that it will use 3.5G HSDPA technology to enable it to offer download speeds of "up to" 3.6 Mbps and upload speed of around 384kbps.

Initially, the flat-rate service will only available in the urban areas around the main cities of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. The operator says that coverage will soon be extended to areas within National Highway Number 16, in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba prefectures, and to parts of suburban areas in Kobe and Osaka by the end of June.

EM indicated that its service will be supported by a variety of high-speed mobile data cards as well as the EM:ONE broadband mobile terminal from Sharp. The company says that it will begin accepting re-orders for the Sharp devices from the beginning of next month. Meanwhile, the mobile operator has also announced an alliance with 3D technology company Yappa to allow its EM:ONE users to browse and save large video and information files.