Motorola Celebrates KDDI’s Achievement : 7 Million 3G Subscribers In Japan

Japan : KDDI, Japan’s second largest wireless network operator, and Motorola jointly celebrated a significant industry milestone on April 8, 2003, when the seven millionth mobile subscriber was registered on KDDI’s Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)2000 1X voice and data network. KDDI launched its CDMA2000 1X voice and data service on April 1, 2002 on its all Motorola supplied wireless radio access network.

Inset above is Tadashi Onodera, President of KDDI who is pleased with the number of handsets KDDI currently has and the positive signs currently for KDDI.

CDMA2000 1X subscriptions rose quickly after launch last year, hitting one million users on June 23, two million on August 23, and rapidly accelerating thereafter. Services are already offered in all 47 of Japan’s prefectures and administrative divisions, and are accessible to 90 percent of the country’s population. CDMA2000 1X technology nearly doubles the network voice capacity and is capable of transmitting data with a maximum downstream speed of 144 kilobits per second and a maximum upstream speed of 64 kilobits per second.

“CDMA2000 1X service has received increasingly positive response from our customers since launching the service. We are proud to announce that we hit our initial aggressive growth target by signing seven million 3G subscribers in just the first year of service,” said Tadashi Onodera, president of KDDI Corporation. “Mobile Multimedia Services, such as Movie Mail, Photo Mail, “Chaku-Uta” new ringer tones service, and the variety of handsets have received increasingly positive responses from the users. A total of 17 CDMA2000 1X mobile phone models have been released.”

"KDDI's 1X subscriber growth rate is amazing,” said Simon Leung, senior vice president and general manager, Motorola’s Global Telecom Solutions Sector, Asia Pacific Region. “This is one of the world’s most successful 3G launches and is proof that 3G 1X services are in high demand, are mature, and can be a key driver to operator growth and profitability.”

Motorola's CDMA2000 1X architecture builds upon existing 2G or 2.5G networks by adding packet based network elements. Reusing the 2G and 2.5G equipment within the 1X architecture can help protect the operator's current investments and can reduce both their capital and operating expenditures. Motorola currently has 14 announced CDMA2000 1X contracts with network operators worldwide.

For the KDDI network, these network elements include the access node from Motorola’s global strategic alliance partner Cisco Systems, Inc. that enables the radio access network to be Internet Protocol (IP) capable. With Cisco’s access node, Motorola’s CDMA2000 1X radio network offers a standards compliant solution that offers incremental features such as enhanced availability and scalability that help address the most critical needs of mobile wireless operators.