Google on Monday reported that its mobile Internet service in China was partially blocked but it was unknown whether the trouble was related to a stand off over censorship there.
A Web site Google set up for people to track the status of its services in China showed that the US Internet giant’s Mobile offering on Sunday joined Groups, Picasa and Docs as listed as “partially blocked.”
“We can confirm that our status page indicates that Mobile services are partially blocked from within mainland China,” a Google spokesman said via e-mail.
Mobile service availability fluctuates and it was too soon to be certain when the partial blockage was a retaliatory move by Chinese officials.
Google mobile includes search, blog, map, news and other services for smartphones and other Internet-enabled handsets.
China currently has at least 384 million Internet users, but it has more than 750 million mobile subscribers, many of whom access Web content via their handsets.
In January, shortly after saying it could leave China altogether over Web censorship and cyberattacks, Google postponed the launch of Android-based mobile handsets developed with Motorola and Samsung for China Unicom.
Separately, KDDI Corp, Japan’s second-largest mobile-phone operator, will introduce its first handset running Google Inc’s Android operating system in June to catch up with rivals NTT DoCoMo Inc and Softbank Corp.
The new model, made by Sharp Corp, will feature a 5-inch touch screen, full physical keyboard and will be able to receive television broadcasts, Tokyo-based KDDI said in a statement yesterday. The handset is the first Android phone by a Japanese manufacturer.
The carrier, which has lagged behind competitors in new subscriber additions since April 2007, is adding the Android phone to its lineup to tap demand for handsets that can surf the Web and download music, video and applications and counter similar moves by rivals. DoCoMo, Japan’s largest mobile-phone operator, plans to sell its second Android model from tomorrow, while Softbank, Apple Inc’s exclusive provider of the iPhone in the country, will introduce its first next month.
“It’s true that we have been late in introducing an Android model,” Makoto Takahashi, responsible for KDDI’s content and media, told reporters in Tokyo yesterday.
The company plans to add a second model that will more closely resemble the iPhone in the fall, Takahashi said, without elaborating.
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