TELECOMS & MOBILE
NTT seeks Dutch I-mode rollout
06-10-2000
by Elaine Larkin
Japan's largest ISP NTT DoCoMo is cooperating with Dutch Telecom KPN, in which it has a 15 percent stake, to develop an I-mode service in Europe.
Norioki Morinaga, NTT DoCoMo senior executive vice president, discussed the company's plans at an Enterprise Ireland Technology Road Map seminar on Thursday. Morinaga said that I-mode would be introduced in Europe once a GPRS packet-based network is laid out in the European market.
He also told ElectricNews.Net that NTT DoCoMo did not intend to take further minority stakes in European mobile network operators.
"DoCoMo's strategy is not to acquire more minority stakes but to introduce I-mode to Europe," Morinaga said. "Instead of acquiring a minority share in an Irish operator we would prefer to do a joint project to start an I-mode service in Ireland. That's the key. With KPN we have already decided to start a joint venture for I-mode in the European market. We see more opportunity in I-mode than in acquiring stakes in bricks-and-mortar companies."
I-mode uses compact HTML or cHTML, which is very similar to HTML, and this, Morinaga said, attracted content providers to I-mode. NTT DoCoMo had been working with both WAP 1.1 and I-mode but decided to use the HTML closest to the standard and abandoned WAP 1.1 last month. "WAP is kind of suffering from this growth. It proves we have to use the Internet standard language," he said.
I-mode uses a packet network so that regardless of connection time users are charged for the amount of data they handle on a package basis, meaning consumers are only charged for the connection while downloading or sending data. DoCoMo has set a maximum charge of around USD3 per data package.
In Japan, where there are more than 12 million I-mode subscribers, the four categories that I-mode is used for are e-mail, transactions, database and entertainment. In Japan 30 percent of all stock trading takes place via I-mode. There are 1,000 official I-mode sites and more than 20,000 unofficial sites.
Also speaking at the seminar Joe Cunningham, Chief Technology Strategist with Logica, said that I-mode paves the way for a profitable mobile Internet, where eventually people will be able to use it for micro and mini payments. In Japan customers are willing to pay for services on sites and DoCoMo acts as a proxy bill collector for some of the sites, earning 9 per cent commission.
I-mode will introduce the use of Java in December, which can enable application/content providers to distribute software (applets) to phones. It will allow users to download programmes, games, and will allow for enhanced security of mobile transactions.
Wide-band CDMA is to be introduced by I-mode in Japan next May, thanks to speed and bandwidth. This will allow users to view static and moving pictures on their phones.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 