Promoting Progressive R&D on "Change and Challenge" Concept

DOCOMO is engaged in progressive research and development with an eye to the future based on the "Change and Challenge" concept, a key concept in our medium/long-term management strategy, in order to offer even more convenient products and services to customers. As a result of these efforts, in fiscal 2010 we partnered with GClue, a developer of open platform content and middleware, to develop BLOCCOnotice1 a service linkage system that allows customers themselves to combine applications on smartphones running the AndroidTMnotice2 operating system and further raise convenience levels.
BLOCCO makes it possible for customers to freely combine multiple applications. A scheduling application, for example, can be combined with a map application to automatically display appointment locations on a map. It also allows combinations created by customers to be shared with other people. GClue has provided BLOCCO on Google PlayTMnotice2, a marketplace for applications, since July 2010.
Since the application was launched it has drawn very positive reviews, with people commenting on the potentially limitless combinations of AndroidTM-based applications, the fact that anything becomes possible depending on the combination, and how interesting the application is as an initiative that takes advantage of the features of AndroidTM.
Going forward, plans call for developing an even more user-friendly interface to improve convenience for customers and providing application combination settings optimized to various usage patterns so that BLOCCO is used by an ever wider range of customers.

  • notice1 BLOCCO is the registered trademark of GClue, Inc.
  • notice2 Android and Google Play are the trademarks or registered trademarks of Google Inc.

Testing License Received for LTE-Advanced, the 4G Mobile Communications Protocol

Image of Testing LTE-Advanced

In January 2011 we received a preliminary license from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications for experimental wireless stations for LTE-Advanced, the fourth-generation (4G) wireless communications protocol, and in March we received a testing license and began field experiments on wireless transmission in Kanagawa Prefecture.
LTE-Advanced is a communications protocol that represents an advancement on Long-Term Evolution (LTE), the new mobile communications standard that went into service with the launch of XiTM ("crossy") by DOCOMO in December 2010. DOCOMO developed a testing system for LTE-Advanced, and in December 2010, in an indoor signal transmission test in a simulated environment with a wired connection, we succeeded in transmitting at a speed of approximately 1Gbps, which is approximately 14 times XiTM's maximum download speed.
The field testing will involve constructing an actual usage environment at the DOCOMO R&D Center and in the cities of Yokosuka and Sagamihara in Kanagawa Prefecture and running a wireless transmission test to verify the performance of the main component technologies of LTE-Advanced.
LTE-Advanced is being promoted for standardization by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, an international standardization body for mobile communications systems. Going forward, we plan to promote further R&D on LTE-Advanced and work toward international standardization to provide faster, higher capacity mobile communications.

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