The world's first third-generation cellular phone service was finally introduced yesterday by Japan's biggest mobile phone operator, NTT DoCoMo, after months of delays and technical glitches.
A low-key start belied the high stakes involved. The technology could break the company or make it into a leader in a market that the world's telecoms companies are spending more than $100bn (£70bn) to create.
The awkwardly named Foma - Freedom Of Mobile Multimedia Access - offers a connection speed that is 40 times faster than existing mobile phones, allowing users to surf the internet and engage in videoconferences.
From next spring, DoCoMo says it will also be possible to download audio files and video clips of sports highlights, music concerts and films. Only a handful of customers queued in the rain to be among the first to get their hands on the new phones, however, which went on sale at about 200 DoCoMo outlets in Tokyo yesterday morning.
They paid handsomely for the privilege. Handsets range in price from ¥66,500 (£375) for a basic web surfing model to ¥95,700 for top-of-the-range colour screen devices capable of video conferencing.
Although suppliers will heavily discount the hardware, consumers have to pay about £57 a month in subscription fees, some 20% more than the existing i-mode internet compatible service.
Initial impressions, however, were positive. "This is fabulous," said a young woman who bought a phone at a store in Tokyo's Shinjuku district. "It's really cool to be able to see the person that I'm talking to."
"It will be a great way of keeping our eye on the kids," said a mother at a nursery school fitted with cameras linked to Foma. "My husband will be able to check on the children from work."
The 3G service, which was supposed to have been introduced in May, will initially be restricted to a 30 km radius in the Tokyo metropolitan area, but DoCoMo says it will rapidly expand coverage to include Osaka, Kyoto and Nagoya by the end of the year and the rest of the country by next spring.
The company has earmarked £17bn to expand the service within the country over the next three years. Aiming initially at business customers who are more likely to pay the extra costs of the service, it hopes to sell 150,000 handsets by March, and then expand to a broader market by 2004, when it expects to produce a profit with more than 6m subscribers.
DoCoMo plans to capitalise on its lead by launching services in Europe early next year in conjunction with firms such as Hutchison 3G UK and KPM Mobile of the Netherlands.
Acknowledging the high stakes, Keiji Tachikawa, chief executive of DoCoMo, said: "The migration from second-generation to third will revolutionise telecommunications, so the first company to launch the new technology will face the highest risks."
Expected retail price ¥95,700 (£540)
Dimensions 104mm x 56mm x 35mm
Weight 150g
Battery life 100 minutes for voice, 70 minutes for video (continuous use)
Standby battery life 55hrs
Packet-transmission rate Downstream 384 kilobytes per second (kbps); upstream 64kbps
Circuit-switched transmission rate 64 kbps
Features Colour screen, i-mode, TV conference calling, internet e-mail, short messaging. No protuding antenna
