TOKYO (02/02/2000) - Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. and Fujitsu Ltd. today announced they are jointly establishing a company to design, develop and manufacture systems for next-generation cellular telephone services.
The new company, Mobile Techno Corp., will focus on systems and services for IMT-2000 (International Mobile Telecommunications 2000), the soon-to-be approved third generation mobile telephone standard, the companies said in a statement.
Mobile Techno will be 65 percent owned by Oki with Fujitsu holding the remaining 35 percent.
The two companies will also work on equipment compatible with the W-CDMA (wideband code division multiple access) and cdma2000 formats, components of which each make up the IMT-2000 system, Oki spokeswoman Tomoko Go said.
Initially, Mobile Techno will concentrate on development of carrier infrastructure systems such as base stations but later it plans to expand into areas such as systems for corporate users and wireless local loop, the companies said.
First year sales of 2 billion yen (US$18.4 million) are anticipated for the new venture.
The formal specification for IMT-2000 has yet to be published by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the Geneva-based standards body behind the effort, although talks continue. Most recently, a set of proposals covering the networking aspects of the standard were published [See "ITU Proposes Network-Related Specs for 3G Phones," Dec. 13, 1999].
Industry participants are currently aiming for formal approval of IMT-2000 at the ITU Radiocommunication Assembly scheduled to take place from May 1 to 5 in Istanbul, Turkey.
With the approval of the specification, vendors like Mobile Techno will be able to finalize designs for commercial IMT-2000 equipment.
Even without formal standardization, work on third-generation mobile networks is already underway in Asia. The two companies are working with Japanese cellular carriers Nippon Ido Tsushin Corp. and DDI Corp.'s DDI Cellular on the development of base station equipment for cdma2000, a next generation format based on current CDMA (code division multiple access) technology and one of the proposals for IMT-2000.
Oki, in Tokyo, can be found online at http://www.oki.co.jp/. Fujitsu, in Tokyo, can be found online at http://www.fujitsu.co.jp/.