Kyocera at CTIA

Friday, April 6th 2007 - 16:02 CEST - Comments: 0

K yocera Wireless Corp., a leading global manufacturer of CDMA wireless handsets and devices, at the CTIA Wireless trade show demonstrated several solutions that deliver on the promise of next-generation wireless technologies to enable a variety of mobile consumer applications. Using its trade show booth as an experience center, Kyocera is demonstrating prototype handsets and devices to showcase the Visa mobile platform using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology; MobiTV streaming television over a WiMAX high-speed connection with Runcom; Wi-Fi-powered music downloads; and Voice-over-IP (VoIP) mobile phone calls over dual-mode CDMA/Wi-Fi connections.

 

Kyocera wireless technology

"Kyocera is seeing a tremendous expansion in the consumer applications for mobile devices, ranging from streaming music and television to on-the-go payment platforms," said Dave Carey, vice president of strategic planning at Kyocera Wireless. "As emerging wireless technologies become available to support these applications, Kyocera Wireless has positioned itself with globally-recognized companies to maintain its leadership role in driving the availability of these features on CDMA handsets and devices."

 

Kyocera mobile payment

Kyocera Wireless and Visa International are demonstrating mobile payments utilizing NFC technology, essentially turning a mobile phone into a Visa payment solution using the Visa mobile platform. Designed to foster collaboration between the financial services and mobile telecommunications sectors for the delivery of mobile payment applications and payment-related services, the Visa mobile platform is a set of mobile services and enabling technologies that can allow banks and mobile operators to develop new mobile payment services for individual markets. At Kyocera's booth, attendees can use a prototype NFC Visa-enabled phone to purchase a beverage from a vending machine, by simply presenting the payment-enabled handset to the vending machine contactless payment spot. The payment transaction is then executed and the amount is either debited from a pre-paid account or charged to a credit card, at the user choice, via the user's mobile phone.

 

Kyocera CDMA device platform

"Through our mobile platform, Visa intends to harness the reach and ‘always-in-hand' flexibility of mobile phones as a centerpiece device in consumers' lives," said Patrick Gauthier, senior vice president, innovation, at Visa International. "Kyocera Wireless provides a stylish, user-friendly CDMA device platform for these innovative payment applications that can help consumers realize the convenient purchasing power of mobile phones." Kyocera will also be demonstrating a simulated purchase of movie tickets directly from a movie poster equipped with NFC technology. Eliminating the need for paper movie tickets, the movie poster transmits a code to the phone after wireless payment, which is then read by another NFC terminal at the entrance to the movie theater.

 

Kyocera mobile WiMAX

Following the announcement in February 2007 of their successful test of a co-developed MIMO-enabled WiMAX Matrix-B PC Card, Kyocera Wireless and Runcom are demonstrating the incredible speeds and performance of this next-generation wireless protocol in cooperation with MobiTV, a streaming television service for mobile devices. With peak data speeds up to 20Mbps, mobile WiMAX can support high-bandwidth applications such streaming video and other data-intensive downloads. MobiTV will be streaming its mobile television service to a tablet PC using Kyocera's MIMO-enabled WiMAX PC card and WiMAX infrastructure provided by Runcom. Kyocera Wireless will also be using its WiMAX card to show multiple on-demand videos on plasma displays.

 

Dual-Mode Wi-Fi CDMA handsets

With Wi-Fi now being widely deployed in hotspots and WANs (Wide Area Networks), VoIP becomes an obvious complement to cellular networks. Kyocera Wireless is in the advanced stages of developing dual-mode CDMA/Wi-Fi handsets is a leading manufacturer in this convergence space.

 

Kyocera voice and data applications

At CTIA, Kyocera is demonstrating both voice and data applications using prototype handsets with Wi-Fi connectivity. Attendees can make calls anywhere within the United States using VoIP technology, with voice quality on par with virtually any cellular network. The prototype phones will also demonstrate Voice Call Continuity (VCC), the seamless handoff of active calls between CDMA and Wi-Fi networks. Kyocera is also demonstrating music downloads over Wi-Fi, including the ability to browse, download and stream digital music quickly and simply. Kyocera representatives are also on hand to discuss the cost benefits of dual-mode services and handsets to consumers, operators and content providers. Demonstrations of these emerging technologies on Kyocera mobile phones and devices are available at Kyocera Wireless during the CTIA Wireless trade show in Orlando this week.

• Kyocera mobile phones
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