Two press releases from NTT Docomo today:
– a first one to announce that the Japanese Communication company will develop with Texas Instruments a single-chip LSI making FOMA 3G handsets compatible with both W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS networks, enabling a lower cost 3G handset to run on both networks.
Currently, it is necessary to embed two chips in order to produce a W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS dual mode handset.
– the second one about the “N900iL,” a dual network handset that runs on both FOMA and wireless LAN networks and that should arrive on the market this Fall. The N900iL may be used as a standard FOMA handset, as well as an in-house VoIP phone utilizing a company’s internal wireless LAN network. It comes with instant messaging capability and a “presence function” to indicate if the called party is on line, off line, in a meeting, out of the office, on a business trip, etc.