DoCoMo's i-mode heading to America

Alex Frew McMillan
CNN Hong Kong

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- After hitting Europe in a big way, NTT DoCoMo's cell-phone Internet service is going to America.

AT&T Wireless Services Inc. will roll out the i-mode technology in the northern autumn, Chairman and CEO John Zeglis confirmed this week.

The U.S. cell-phone company, the third largest in the country, expects to offer the service in 24 cities to start with.

By the end of the year, the company says it will take it to all major cities. That would open up AT&T Wireless' total customer base of 21.4 million.

European plans set

In mid-April, DoCoMo confirmed it has picked Bouygues Telecom to offer I-mode in France by year-end (full story). It has launched in the Netherlands and is slated to debut in Belgium this June.

NTT DoCoMo typically picks a partner that it partly owns. DoCoMo already owns 16 percent of AT&T Wireless, which had the largest initial public offering in U.S. history when it spun off from AT&T in April 2000.

AT&T Wireless has also already launched its own Internet-enabled cell phone service, mMode. The company debuted mMode in the middle of April, modeled on i-Mode technology.

AT&T wanted i-mode technology

But Zeglis told Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily that his company would also start offering i-Mode, to take advantage of that technology.

The technology is slightly different, and AT&T Wireless is helping develop phones able to handle i-mode and mMode. But the services will both be marketed under the mMode name.

The mMode service is already available in Chicago; Detroit; Indianapolis; Seattle; Las Vegas; Phoenix; Portland, Oregon; Kansas City, Missouri; and the Florida cities of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa, St. Petersburg and West Palm Beach.

That basic service costs $2.99 a month with a 2 cent charge for each kilobyte of information uploaded or downloaded, though it also offers monthly deals aimed at heavy-duty users.

Zeglis said American users will be able to use the same services that i-mode users have in Japan, reading e-mail, looking at the Internet, being able to bank and buy tickets through their phone.

Looking abroad while waiting for 3G

DoCoMo, which means "Anywhere" in Japanese, is Japan's largest cell-phone company. In its home market, it has now introduced third generation or "3G" service, amid technical glitches.

Analysts are skeptical whether customers want 3G service, with phones able to transmit video and photos. But customers quickly snapped up the Internet-enabled i-mode service.

In Japan, i-mode -- dubbed "2.5G" phone service -- built up a customer base of around 32 million in just over three years.

While waiting for that to take off in Japan, DoCoMo, the largest company in Japan by market capitalization, is now looking abroad for i-mode growth (full story).

Japan's stock market is closed Friday for the Constitution Day holiday and will be closed on Monday for the Children's Day holiday. Trading resumes Tuesday.

AT&T Wireless closed Thursday up 0.68 percent at $48.73. Only Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless have more mobile customers in the United States.