NTT DoCoMo, Motorola tie up on 3G handsets

NTT DoCoMo will release a handset compatible with non-Japanese cellular networks and with its own 3G (third generation) mobile network early next year. The handset will be made by Motorola Inc. for DoCoMo and will also support wireless LAN, the two companies said in a statement on Wednesday.

The announcement comes eight months after DoCoMo said it was investing about ¥37 billion yen (then worth $344 million) over two years in six companies, including Motorola, to develop advanced handset technologies compatible with WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access). Motorola was the only non-Japanese handset maker to be a part of the development project. The other companies were Fujitsu Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., NEC Corp., Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd. and Sharp Corp.

That DoCoMo plans to sell a Motorola handset is not a surprise.

“If we ever had any doubts about Motorola developing a phone, we wouldn’t have made the investment,” said DoCoMo spokesman Nobuo Hori.

The new terminal will support WCDMA used by DoCoMo and also the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) standards used by most cellular networks around the world.

Other features include the ability to access Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) Web sites. DoCoMo phone browsers use I-mode, the company’s mobile Internet platform, to access Web sites. Such browsers can presently only access a version of HTML.

In addition, the Motorola terminal will be the first from DoCoMo to support public WLAN (wireless LAN) access, and the first to download Word, Excel and PowerPoint files as e-mail attachments.

DoCoMo will release another WLAN-compatible terminal, the N900iL by NEC, by the end of the year. This terminal is designed to connect to corporate intranets. Another terminal, the SH900i by Sharp, has the ability to read Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents transferred to its memory card from PCs.

DoCoMo is Japan’s largest carrier, with 46.6 million of Japan’s 83.1 million cell phone subscribers, according to the Telecommunications Carriers Association. DoCoMo attributes recent subscriber growth for its 3G service to the release of more advanced terminals. The number of subscribers to the 3G service has doubled from 2.32 million to 5.27 million in the six months from Feb. 2004 to July 2004, according to the company.