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| Company type | Public company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 1 November 2000 |
| Headquarters | Japan |
| Products | Chaku-Uta-Full, LISMO |
| Parent | KDDI |
| Website | au |
au, or au by KDDI, is a Japanese mobile phone operator. au is a brand marketed by KDDI in the main islands of Japan and by Okinawa Cellular in Okinawa for their mobile cellular services. au is the second-largest wireless carrier in Japan, with 60.398 million subscribers as of March 2021. [1]
According to the brand creator, the name 'au' is based on the Japanese verbs for 'meet' (会う) and 'unite' (合う) (both pronounced 'au'). [2] However, KDDI explains that au comes from two letters which stand for few words. 'A' is for access, always and amenity, and 'U' is for unique, universal and user. There is also a phrase, 'access to u(you)' that goes along the brand name. [3]
The network that would eventually become au was originally set up as two networks: DDI and IDO. IDO's network was based upon the NTT Hi-cap analog cellular system, and began operations in December 1988 in the Kanto and Tokai regions. DDI's network was run by independent phone companies, and began service in 1989 using the TACS system elsewhere in Japan. Nippon Idou Tsushin (IDO) was owned by Toyota, whereas DDI was owned by Kyocera Corporation.
au K.K. (株式会社エーユー) was established in November 2000 by Kyocera as part of the DDI Cellular network. In 2001, the company was merged into KDDI (which had been formed in 2000 by the merger of DDI, KDD, and IDO), but its brand name was retained and applied to all mobile phone service under KDDI group.
au established a nationwide 3G network in 2003, replacing its previous cdmaOne service with CDMA 1X WIN (1xEV-DO Rev A) service.[ citation needed ] It started selling the iPhone 4S from 14 October 2011.[ citation needed ] The company launched LTE service as 'au 4G LTE' in September 2012. It launched 5G service as 'UNLIMITED WORLD au 5G' on 26 March 2020. [4]
Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN) is a mobile telecommunications technology, developed by Motorola, which provides its users the benefits of a trunked radio and a cellular telephone. It was called the first mobile social network by many technology industry analysts. iDEN places more users in a given spectral space, compared to analog cellular and two-way radio systems, by using speech compression and time-division multiple access (TDMA).
3G is the third generation of wireless mobile telecommunications technology. It is the upgrade to 2G, 2.5G, GPRS and 2.75G Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution networks, offering faster data transfer, and better voice quality. This network was superseded by 4G, and later by 5G. This network is based on a set of standards used for mobile devices and mobile telecommunications services and networks that comply with the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000) specifications set by the International Telecommunication Union. 3G is used in wireless voice telephony, mobile Internet access, fixed wireless Internet access, video calls and mobile TV.
NTT Docomo, Inc., also known as Docomo, is a Japanese mobile phone operator owned by the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT). The name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase, "do communications over the mobile network", and is also from a compound word dokomo, meaning "everywhere" in Japanese. The company is headquartered in Sanno Park Tower, Nagatachō, Chiyoda, Tokyo. Docomo provides phone, video phone, i-mode (internet), and mail services. It is the largest wireless carrier in Japan, with 82.632 million subscribers as of March 2021.
Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the divisions Verizon Consumer and Verizon Business, and stopped using the Verizon Wireless name. Verizon has 114.8 million subscribers as of March 31, 2024. It currently has the largest network in the United States with their LTE network covering 70% of the United States.
KDDI Corporation is a Japanese telecommunications operator. It was established in 2000 through the merger of DDI, KDD (ケイディディ), and IDO. In 2001, it merged with a subsidiary named Au, which was formed through the merger of seven automotive and mobile phone companies from the DDI-Cellular Group. As of 2020, it is the second-largest mobile telecommunications provider in Japan in terms of the number of contracts, following NTT Docomo.
SK Telecom Co., Ltd., abbreviated as SKT is a South Korean wireless telecommunications operator and former film distributor and is part of the SK Group, one of the country's largest chaebols. It leads the local market with 50.5 percent share as of 2008. SK Telecom is the largest wireless carrier in South Korea, with 23 million subscribers as of Q4 2023.
A cellular network or mobile network is a telecommunications network where the link to and from end nodes is wireless and the network is distributed over land areas called cells, each served by at least one fixed-location transceiver. These base stations provide the cell with the network coverage which can be used for transmission of voice, data, and other types of content. A cell typically uses a different set of frequencies from neighboring cells, to avoid interference and provide guaranteed service quality within each cell.
GSM frequency bands or frequency ranges are the cellular frequencies designated by the ITU for the operation of GSM mobile phones and other mobile devices.
1G refers to the first generation of cellular network (wireless) technology. These are mobile telecommunications standards that were introduced in the 1980s and were superseded by 2G. The main difference between these two mobile cellular generations is that the audio transmissions of 1G networks were analog, while 2G networks were entirely digital.
Nepal Saar Doorsanchar Company Ltd., popularly known as Nepal Telecom or NTC, is a state-owned telecommunications service provider in Nepal. The company was a monopoly until 2003, when the first private sector operator, United Telecom Limited (UTL), started providing basic telephony services. The central office of Nepal Telecom is located at Bhadrakali Plaza, Kathmandu. It has branches, exchanges, and other offices in 184 locations within the country.
United States Cellular Corporation is an American mobile network operator. Its stock is publicly traded, but Telephone and Data Systems Inc. owns a controlling stake. The company was formed in 1983 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. UScellular is the fifth largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 4.5 million subscribers in 21 states as of June 30, 2024.
1seg is a mobile terrestrial digital audio/video and data broadcasting service in Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru and the Philippines. Service began experimentally during 2005 and commercially on April 1, 2006. It is designed as a component of ISDB-T, the terrestrial digital broadcast system used in those countries, as each channel is divided into 13 segments, with a further segment separating it from the next channel; an HDTV broadcast signal occupies 12 segments, leaving the remaining (13th) segment for mobile receivers, hence the name, "1seg" or "One Seg".
LISMO is an online music service provided by au, a Japanese mobile phone brand run by KDDI, a Japanese telecommunication company. This service uses a mobile phone as a music player. This service was introduced on January 19, 2006, and the service began operating at the end of January in Japan. The first mobile phone which supports LISMO was sold on January 26, 2006. Since 2008, KDDI and Okinawa Cellular introduced 'LISMO Video', a new service with new means to enjoy video content as well.
Y!mobile is a Japanese mobile phone operator. Y!mobile is a brand used by SoftBank Corp., a subsidiary of Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank Group Corporation, that provides mobile telecommunications and ADSL services. The current CEO of the company is Ken Miyauchi. It was formed in 2014 through the merger of Willcom and eAccess, and uses the Y! moniker brand from Yahoo! Japan, which is partly-owned by SoftBank.
Yemen Mobile is a CDMA2000 network provider founded in Yemen in 2004 by the Yemen ministry of telecommunication and it is the first CDMA network operator in the Middle East. Yemen Mobile CDMA system is based on Huawei equipment. According to the 3GPP2 standard, CDMA2000 system is fully compatible with IS-95 cellular phones, so any IS-95 phone will work with Yemen mobile. In 2012, Yemen mobile implemented ZTE equipment besides Huawei as well as using LG-Nortel network in some eastern parts of the country. Yemen Mobile is the first 3G company in Yemen that provides CDMA2000 1x and 1xEV-DO services. Yemen mobile was established in 2004 as a third wireless operator in Yemen and initially provided voice services alongside data services which enable their customers to use data and the Internet at a speed of 153 kbit/s by implementing the CDMA2000 1xRTT standard. By 2007, it had jumped to the top of mobile operators in the country in term of subscribers number and coverage.
The Japanese mobile phone industry is one of the most advanced in the world. As of March, 2022 there were 199.99 million mobile contracts in Japan according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. This is 158 percent of Japan's total population.
The Samsung Galaxy S II WiMAX ISW11SC is an Android smartphone developed by Samsung Electronics, and sold by au in Japan.
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