Super 3G trials

NTT DoCoMo announces the end of Super 3G / LTE development in 2009, starting these days with an indoor trial at 300 Mbps downlink between two gizmos. You don't want to stay in that room unless you need a perm. DoC also created CXD NEXT, a 40/60 JV with Casio Computer mating cash registers with mobile devices. iD, FeliCa, ToruCa, and others are rumored to attend the wedding as key witnesses.

RIM announces the BlackBerry 8820, a dual mode 2GSM / WiFi smartphone. SMART enough to switch from one network to the other during a PHONE call. You wouldn't want to use WiFi for secured data sessions, would you ?

Orange UK and PC World announce the "free" laptop for £ 337 (£ 14.99 per month for 24 months, except the first 3 for half the price - and you get a 2MB connection with a monthly limit of 2 GB). You may prefer their £ 300 subsidy on a few other references, or another provider with a better and cheaper free package.

Informa informs us : 6.2% of all W-CDMA subs were HSPA at the end of Q1 2007 and 20.5% will be by EOY 2008. Oh BOY.

Wetband-CDMA and Season's Greetings

Every year in Europe, about 300,000 handsets fall down a toilet bowl. LG Telecom (the MNO, not the handset manufacturer) being in deep gimchi, they decided to release Casio's water-proof phones to lighten up their season's greetings. These Wetband-CDMA beauties are quake-proof as well, but LGT are not likely to shake the country next year. Unless they bring a new player into the game, that is.
Korea Telecom took a much more political path announcing the first inter-korean phone service since the War. Mercifully enough, they dropped the Dok-do line.
Korea' national post services surfed yet another wave revealing a brand new set of stamps : the heroes of the day are video games characters. Welcome to the country where virtual monsters are more likely to end up on a stamp than one-term-presidents bound to lameduckood as soon as they're elected.
But Samsung took the nicest slice of the cake : following their deal with Vodafone Group Plc and Qualcomm, they can expect a happy new HSDPA year. I would advise them not to expose any wetphones come next 3GSM World Congress : with all those waves around them visitors always get a perm while roaming the show, but you wouldn't want any of them to be hydrocuted.

I wish you a happy new year too. You've been reading this excuse for a blog from over 120 countries (though more often from San Mateo County than from Ulaanbaatar or Ouagadougou, I must confess) and your comments are always very much welcomed.