SoftBank Mobile

SoftBank Corp. (ソフトバンク株式会社, Sofutobanku Kabushikigaisha), previously as SoftBank Mobile Corp., Vodafone K.K. (also known as Vodafone Japan) and J-PHONE is the telecommunications subsidiary of SoftBank Group, including mobile and fixed-line services.

Masayoshi Son is chairman and Ken Miyauchi is President and CEO.

Technology

SoftBank Mobile operates W-CDMA (UMTS 3G) network ("SoftBank 3G"). SoftBank's 3G network is compatible with UMTS and supports transparent global roaming for existing UMTS subscribers from other countries. SoftBank 4G uses TD-LTE / LTE. SoftBank offers 4G speeds of more than 110Mbit/s. SoftBank WiFi Spots are available almost everywhere in Japan.

History

The company was originally founded in 1981 as the mobile phone division of Japan Telecom under the name Digital Phone (デジタルホン). J-PHONE Co., Ltd. (J-フォン) was formed in 1999 by the merging of Digital Phone Group (DPG, 3 local companies) and Digital TU-KA Group (DTG, 6 local companies, not to be confused with TU-KA). Japan Telecom owned a stake of 45.1%. In October 2001, the British mobile phone group Vodafone increased its share to 66.7% of Japan Telecom and 69.7% of J-Phone. On October 1, 2003, the name of the company and the service brand was officially changed to Vodafone. The growth and success of the company during this period is due in large part to then president Bill Morrow.