Japan’s Mobile WiMax system, operated by a KDDI-led consortia, through provider UQ Communications, is geared up for commercial launch this month in all 23 Tokyo wards, says Wireless Watch Japan.
Yokohama and Kawasaki are next with Nagoya and Osaka coming online in June. The monthly flat-rate access fee is noted at 4,480jpy, or about $40, and will be available for free until June 30th. They also indicate that “UQ Wi-Fi” service will be made freely available on the Shinkansen for some commercial clients as of March and all customers as of September. A group, including Intel, JR East, Kyocera and several banks, formed in September 2007, gained official approval from the ministry for the 2.5GHz spectrum.
The chips and dongles are supplied via Beceem Communications. Two vendors, one American and the other Japanese, said they plan to deploy a citywide WiMAX wireless broadband network in Tokyo. U.S. vendor Airspan and Japanese communications operator Yozan said they’ll start trials for the network in the second quarter of this year.
UQ Communications expects to attract 300,000 subscribers to its WiMAX service by the end of the 2009 and expects to attract several million subscribers in the coming years with coverage of more than 90% of the Japanese population by 2012.
