Fujitsu & Folli Follie Bring Out A Fragrance Filled, Waterproof Phone, F-022 Targeting Chinese Ladies.

Fujitsu & Folli Follie F-022  http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
Well if you are Chinese lady, who likes to everything around you to smell nice, Fujitsu and Folli Follie is giving you a chance to make so with your phone. F-022, a flip phone comes with a special fragrance chip that keeps you happy, after adding your favorite fragrance.
If you are the type who carries on your phone conversations, in the powder room, here too the phone has an advantage. You can drop the phone into the sink, you can just pick it up and continue the conversation, because it is waterproof!
The case is even adorned with two karet cubic zirconia so you do not have to risk carrying your diamonds all over Beijing.
Once you are happy with the glitzy functions, there are other functions that allow you to carry a video phone conversation over the 3G and you can take photos of your friends with 8.1MP external camera which has a mode, pupil mode, to make eyes appear larger than they are.
If you fancy the phone, you will find it both at China Mobile and China Unicom.

Phone Specs;

Size: ~110 × 50 × 14.8 mm (16.8 mm at thickest point)

Weight: approximately 118 g (with battery)

Continuous Standby Time:
~420 hours in 3G static (automatic)
~200 hours in GSM static (automatic)

Continuous Talk Time:
~210 minutes in 3G voice mode
~80 minutes in 3G videophone mode
~190 minutes in GSM voice mode

Main Display: ~3" color LCD with full wide VGA (480 × 854 pixels)

Camera:
(External camera): 8.1 megapixel effective resolution, CMOS sensor
(Internal camera): 0.3 megapixel effective resolution, CMOS Sensor

Color: Gold

Fujitsu Folli Follie press release;
 

Fujitsu and Folli Follie Collaborate to Launch Mobile Phone in the Chinese Market

The ever-sparkling Folli Follie-design fragrance and waterproof mobile phone

Shanghai, China and Tokyo, Japan, June 16, 2011 - Fujitsu today announced the development of its F-022 mobile phone for the Chinese market. The new mobile phone, a result of collaborative efforts undertaken together with jewellery, watches and accessories brand Folli Follie, is not only gorgeously designed but also capable of simplified Chinese character display and input. A hugely popular brand in Japan, Folli Follie also operates approximately 100 stores in China. Sales of the F-022 mobile phone will commence from June 24, 2011 at Beijing Digital Telecom Co., Ltd., one of China's largest mobile phone chains with over 1,000 stores.

The softly illuminated front casing of the F-022 mobile phone is adorned with a glitter-motif design including a diamond-like jewel block of two-karat cubic zirconia. As another totally unique feature, users can enjoy a continuously fragrant mobile phone by spraying a perfume of their choice onto the detachable fragrance chip located on the mobile phone's reverse side. In addition, the F-022 is equipped with a high-performance, 8.1-megapixel camera that not only is up to digital camera level standards but also takes outstanding photos of people by enhancing the beauty of skin tones with its "beautiful skin" mode, together with enabling photos that highlight large, natural-looking eyes with a "pupil tracking" mode. This Fujitsu mobile phone goes even further, staying ahead of other manufacturers as it is equipped with a water-resistant (rated IPX5/7/8) and dust-resistant (rated IP5X) technology. Overall, a stunning design, a fragrance feature and ability to showcase a user's unique personality makes this phone a delight to keep close and carry.

Expected target users are 20 to 40 year-old women with a well-developed sense of fashion. The F-022 mobile phone will utilize circuits made available by China-based carriers China Mobile and China Unicom.

Fujitsu

China BansSkype And Other VoIP Services.

China Bans #Skype And Other #VoIP Services http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
Chinese government has announced that it is banning all VoIP services based outside. It seems China is trying to protect profits for the country's own telecomm companies, state-owned networks, China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile. Chinese Telecomm companies have become very powerful given the massive numbers in their user base. Even though not very clear, people will be able to make calls over these company networks.
The new regulation bans calls from Skype or other VoIP services to land lines. But according to Skype, it's users in China are still could access Skype via Tom Online. Tom Online is widely criticized for monitoring online conversations foe "sensitive" materials.
Either way it will be a difficult task to control all VoIP IP Telephony calls, even though Skype calls to landlines could be controlled by blocking PSTN gateways within controlled networks.
Neither Telecomm companies nor Chinese government has responded to calls from various news agents and journalists.

China Leads Global Mobile Operator Ranks!

China Leads Global Mobile Operator Ranks http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
In what may look like a forerunner to what to expect int he future, in other industries as well, Chinese Mobile Operators have secured the top ranks.
China Mobile continues to be ranked as the world's #1 operator, reporting the highest mobile subscriber connections count (556.3 million) and mobile revenue (US$17.7 billion).

Vodafone remained in the number two position (331.4 million) connections and revenue of (14.561 Billion).
The third was secured by America Movil by jumping two places in ranking to overtake Telefonica for third place on the back of strong growth in its Latin American markets with (211.3 million) connections and (6.9 billion) revenue.

The others were not so bad either,
4     Telefonica Group  155 million connections and 8.8 Billion revenue
5     Deutsche Telekom Group     108.2 million connections and 10.4 billion in revenue
5(6)     Verizon Wireless     99.7 million connections and 14 billion in revenue
7     AT&T     91.0 million connections and 13.1 billion in revenue thanks to iPhone and Apple.
8     China Unicom     157 million connections 3 billion in the pocket
9     MTN Group got      101.6 million connections with 3.7 billion of revenue
10     France Telecom Group     78.4 million connections and 6.8billion in revenue.
You can find more information on this ranking and the how the other ten mobile operators, like NTT Docomo, Bharti Airtel and Sprint did at Wireless Intelligence

China Follows The West, Requires ID for Cellphone SIMs

China Requires ID for Cellphone numbers http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
Sighting that more than 320 million cell phone users who are unidentifiable and the growing numbers of mobile spammers, pornography and fraud, Chinese government has began to tighten the knot. Most Western countries too require an ID and / or credit card information when purchasing a Cellphone or a SIM card to be used on a phone or a mobile device.

But the question seem to be if the Chinese government is capable of  of providing security for personal data. It is certainly large number of mobile users, 800 million at the count and growing, I doubt it would be different from how the other countries handle the personal data. Knowing the paranoia of the Chinese government in the past, they may already have a massive database on it's people and just need to add a field for the cell phone number. The Chinese Consumer database certainly will be very large.
China plans to impose the rules through  government-controlled cellular companies — China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom.
NYT has a fine article that allows you to draw your own conclusions;

BEIJING — The Chinese government on Wednesday began to require cellphone users to furnish identification when buying SIM cards, a move officials cast as an effort to rein in burgeoning cellphone spam, pornography and fraud schemes.

The requirement, which has been in the works for years, is not unlike rules in many developed nations that ask users to present credit card data or other proof of identification to buy cellphone numbers. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that about 40 percent of China’s 800 million cellphone users were currently unidentified. Those users will be ordered to furnish identification by 2013 or lose their service, according to The Global Times, a state-run newspaper.

NYT

Chinese iPhone Coming Soon, From China Unicom

iPhone in China

China UniCom, the official carrier for iPhone in China, is going aginst the usual flow of subsidized phones and high cost plans likr that of AT&T. The company will offer the phone country wide in mid-October
Although not as big compared to China Mobile (which walked away from a iPhone deal) , China Unicom commands about 140 Million customers but iPhone might shift the numbers in wireless market. Just like AT&T survived thanks to iPhone. We also thought Apple might have both carriers, China Mobile and China Unicom carry the iPhone.
There have been steady flow of iPhones to China, from other countries that got the phone earlier and the hawkers selling them for exorbitant prices but for years the trend continued. So China Unicom might have recognized the trend and looks like keeping prices up, at least initially.
It is reported that 8GB iPhone 3G will start at 2075 Yuan (~$303 at current exchange rates) and 16GB 3G will cost 2999 Yuan or $439. The prices of 3GS is not spoken about but the word on the wire is that 16GB 3GS will cost 3999 Yuan and 32GB costing 4999 Yuan.
But the plan costs are 126 Yuan ($18.45) and even with 3GS, Chinese users will do much better financially that AT&T customers who where abouts of $80 a month. Perhaps even better service too! as it is not hard to be better.
Via MobileCrunch