We know since last night that au/KDDI is officially the second carrier to get the iPhone in Japan.
While no release date has been publicly announced, we learnt that KDDI decided not to wait until 2012 and the upgrade of its mobile email service to start selling the device.
What we know for sure is that SoftBank will start selling the iPhone 4S on October 14.
What we also know is that SoftBank CEO, Masason, has decided to fight back the competition.
MASASON THROWS THE GAUNTLET
Look at that tweet he sent an hour ago:
What is Masason saying yes to? SoftBank has download speeds of 14.4Mbps —the same touted by Apple yesterday, dissing the 4G talks— and 5.7Mbps uplink , while au/KDDI only offers a maximum of 3.1Mbps downlink with a 1.8Mbps uplink.
It’s interesting to note that the original tweet was meant as a question, asking the CEO if the difference was due to SoftBank using W-CDMA, aka HSDPA, while au/KDDI relies on CDMA EV-DO Rev. A standard.
Masason just went for the affirmative on those numbers. If that’s not called opening the hostilities… “KDDI, raise to the challenge!”
KDDI Data Standard
It’s certainly true that specs for this latter standard would need to be upgraded to the Rev. B to reach the 14+Mbps range.
Now, KDDI had actually announced some time ago it would upgrade to a subset of the aforementioned Rev. B standard to allow for some channel bundling, leading to a theoretical downlink of 9Mbps. I must admit that I would need to verify if those plans came to fruition and whether the entire network is —or will be— concerned.
And those numbers would have to be tested for both SoftBank and KDDI to not remain purely theoretical.
The fact of the matter remains: SoftBank is feeling the heat from the competition and Masason will not throw the towel. I can’t say that I don’t admire his fighting spirit.
Ready to rumble?
UPDATE: I’ve corrected the download and upload speeds, thanks to Andrew Wright.
