Japan’s third-largest mobile phone operator Softbank Mobile, will launch a new high-speed wireless Internet access service featuring speeds of up to 110 megabits per second in Japan. Softbank 4G service to be launched on Friday is 7-8 times faster than current services in Japan. Monthly charges will be 5,505 yen ($69) or 3,880 yen ($48) for Softbank Mobile customers with smartphone contracts. Download speeds will be limited to 128kbps for users that exceed 5GB of data use per month, although the limit can be extended for an additional fee. The first device Softbank will offer for the4G network will be a portable Wi-Fi router from Seiko Instruments.
The ULTRA Wi-Fi 4G SoftBank 101SI Wi-Fi router will allow up to 10 Wi-Fi users to share the mobile connection at download speeds of up to 76Mbps and upload speeds up to 10Mbps. Softbank’s high-speed network is based on a format called AXGP, an advanced version of an older Japanese standard, Personal Handy-phone System (PHS). The 4G services will only be available in Japan’s major cities at launch, and will revert to Softbank’s existing 42Mbps network in other areas. With the launch of 4G service, Softbank plans to challenge NTT Docomo’s extra-high-speed next-generation LTE service, Xi, which offers mobile data communication at speeds of up to 75 mbps.
