DoCoMo looks overseas for handsets
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NTT DoCoMo, Japan&#39;s dominant mobile operator, is to start selling mobile phones from Nokia and Motorola next year in a bid to reduce its reliance on local manufacturers.
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Tokyo, Aug. 23 (Jiji Press)--NTT DoCoMo firmed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Monday morning following a media report that it will start procuring mobile phone handsets made by Motorola Inc.
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Increasing NTT DoCoMo&#39;s reach outside Japan, the Japanese carrier has partnered with Motorola to build a 3G FOMA phone that also does GSM/GPRS.
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Japan&#39;s top cell phone operator NTT DoCoMo Inc. and major British mobile carrier mm02 plc reached an agreement that will allow mobile telephone users in Britain, Germany, and Ireland to surf the Internet on the handsets, DoCoMo said Tuesday.
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It&#39;s easy to be wowed by Japan&#39;s mobile communications infrastructure. &quot;Next-generation&quot; 3G coverage is now so ubiquitous that carriers have already stopped launching 2G phones; an impressive array of attractive handsets offer free digital TV; phones can be used to pay for goods and train rides, thanks to embedded contactless smart cards; and on the mobile information superhighway data whizzes along at 3.6Mbps. But watch out for the off-ramps.While Japan has led the world with many of the services offered to consumers, in some ways the mobile ecosystem here is downright backward as I found out last weekend when I tried to buy a new phone. A broken handset necessitated a new model and this is where my story begins.In Japan, phones are sold by carriers and not the phone makers. Companies like Fujitsu, NEC, Sony Ericsson, and a few foreign vendors including Nokia, Samsung, and LG sell their phones in the thousands to carriers. This gives carriers the ability to pretty much dictate to the phone maker what software needs to be installed.This model is one of the reasons that mobile Internet services like I-mode took off here so quickly. There was no chicken-and-egg situation with phone makers and users waiting for each other to take the plunge. NTT DoCoMo decided I-mode would be in new phones and so it was.But this model has a downside. Phones are so tightly customized to each carrier that it&#39;s not practical to keep the same handset when switching carriers, and if you see a phone you like you can only buy it if it&#39;s offered by your carrier.Back to my story. The new phone was looking quite expensive so I decided to switch carriers and take advantage of a free phone on a competitor network. Japan launched number portability a year ago, so I could make the jump without losing my cell-phone number. I&#39;d still have the hassle of a new e-mail address, but it appeared a small price to pay.Before long I had a new phone in my hands, but my phone numbers remained locked in the old handset. The new carrier didn&#39;t have a cable to hook up to my old phone so they couldn&#39;t transfer the address book and it wasn&#39;t possible to beam it between the phones. While my old carrier was gung-ho on Bluetooth, my new carrier wasn&#39;t so enthusiastic, so the new phone had no support. Similarly, while the new phone offered infrared, the old phone didn&#39;t. Heavy customization strikes again.Back home I fired up my PC and managed to get my address book from the old phone into the computer. Getting it to the new phone via a memory card seemed like an easy task ... but no! The VCard file wasn&#39;t being properly read by the new phone. Carriers, it was explained to me when I called the help line, often used custom fields in their VCards so there were sometimes problems. So much for a common standard.I won&#39;t bore you with the technicalities of how I eventually got my address book into my new phone, but suffice to say this story has a happy ending. I&#39;m now back in cruise control, enjoying all the attractions the mobile superhighway has to offer.The number portability system that enabled me to keep my phone number is coincidentally one-year-old this week. About 3 percent of users in Japan -- roughly 3.7 million people -- have made use of the system during its first year -- far less than the industry predicted, or feared.One thing that&#39;s said to be stopping users from switching is the inability to keep their e-mail addresses. While carriers fussed over the details of keeping numbers, they forgot, or perhaps ignored, the need to carry e-mail addresses between carriers. In other countries this wouldn&#39;t be a big deal because most messaging is done via SMS, which relies on phone numbers, but in Japan the advanced stage of the market has again caused hassle for consumers.
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Japan&#39;s NTT DoCoMo has released a dual-mode phone that works on both 3G FOMA cellular networks and wireless local area networks.
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Mobile phone giant Vodafone says it will introduce 10 new 3G handsets, many of which will be useable in both Europe and Japan.
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TOKYO Motorola and NTT DoCoMo said on Wednesday that they would jointly develop third-generation cellphones, giving the American company an important foothold in the Japanese market.
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Mobile phone carrier NTT DoCoMo is in talks with Apple over launching the iPhone in Japan, a report says.
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Japan's NTT DoCoMo Inc.  and  Atlanta-based AT&T Inc.'s  wireless unit will work  together to build a high-speed mobile network throughout  Hawaii, catering to Japanese tourists.
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TOKYO - NTT DoCoMo Inc said Wednesday it has developed five new models for the 901i series of 3G FOMA cell phone handsets, featuring an enhanced audio system, and will market one model, the SH901iC, nationwide Nov 26 with other models to follow.
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MANHASSET, NY - NTT DoCoMo Inc. on Tuesday (Nov. 16) started selling what one analyst called the &quot;world&#39;s first commercially available&quot; combination Wi-Fi/cellular phone.
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Japanese mobile phone company DoCoMo is in talks to buy 3G handsets from Motorola, the world's second largest handset maker.
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TOKYO : Japan&#39;s top mobile operator NTT DoCoMo believes Europe will embrace hi-tech telephones and expects a major boost in subscribers on the continent of its i-mode Internet service.
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TOKYO (XFN-ASIA) - NTT DoCoMo Inc, Japan&#39;s leading mobile phone service operator, said it will invest a total of 8.2 mln usd in two China-based companies in a move to strengthen its mobile phone businesses in the rapidly growing market there.
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TOKYO - NTT DoCoMo Inc said Tuesday that it will expand its i-mode Internet-capable cell phone services into Britain and Ireland in the latter half of 2005 by concluding a licensing contract with British cell phone company mmO2 PLC.
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Motorola and NTT DoCoMo plan to target Japanese business travelers with a new 3G handset next spring that will run on W-CDMA and GSM networks.