Saturday, September 1, 2001
DoCoMo To Launch 3G Cell Phone Service Oct 1
TOKYO (Nikkei)--NTT DoCoMo Inc. (9437) has decided to begin the world's
first full-scale commercial 3G (third-generation) cellular phone service
Oct. 1, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun learned Friday.
The service, called FOMA (Freedom Of Mobile multimedia Access), will be
offered in Tokyo's 23 wards as well as parts of Kanagawa, Saitama and
Chiba prefectures within 30km of central Tokyo.
New handsets will go on sale starting that month at about 50,000 yen
apiece. DoCoMo aims for 150,000 subscribers by the end of March 2002.
Voice communications fees will be set at about the same level as current
digital cell phone services. Data communications services, which enable
the transmission of video, will carry a variety of fees. Per packet
communications fees for transmitting video, which requires massive
volumes of data, will be set at less than one-tenth the fees for digital
cell phone services in a bid to promote corporate use.
DoCoMo began testing the service May 30 and had postponed the full
launch until October. Technical problems such as callers being cut off
or having difficulty getting connected had stirred fears that it would
be delayed yet again.
(The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Saturday morning edition)
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Received on Sat Sep 1 02:44:42 2001