NTT DoCoMo, Inc. , is the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan. The name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase Do Communications Over the Mobile Network, but also means “everywhere” in Japanese.
DoCoMo was spun off from NTT in August 1991 to take over the mobile cellular operations. Its businesses now include cellular (MOVA and FOMA), PHS (Paldio), paging, and satellite. DoCoMo provides 2G(MOVA) PDC cellular services in 800 MHz and 1.5 GHz bands (total 34 MHz bandwidth), and 3G(FOMA) W-CDMA services in the 2 GHz (1945-1960 MHz) band.
DoCoMo is noted as the creator of the highly successful i-mode mobile Internet services which was launched in February 1999 and now serves more than 43 million users in Japan and more than 3 million users outside of Japan. i-mode is provided by DoCoMo's partners globally in countries like France, Italy, Spain, Greece and Taiwan. DoCoMo also launched FOMA, the world's first commercial W-CDMA 3G mobile service in October 2001 which finally started to take off around the end of 2003.
Docomo is providing phone, video phone(FOMA and Some PHS), i-mode(internet),and mail(i-mode mail,Short Mail,and SMS).
Data
As of March 2004
Customers
DoCoMo had 45.9 million cellular customers, including 3.05 million FOMA subscribers and 41.1 million i-mode users. It has a dominating market share of 56.3%, which has been declining slightly in recent years.
Owners
NTT DoCoMo has the following owners:
Ownership
NTT DoCoMo has the following foreign interest:
- 18% in AT&T Wireless
- 20% in Hutchison 3G UK (however, this 20% stake is in process of being sold)
See also
External links