NTT DoCoMo (DoCoMo)

DoCoMO is a Japanese company that took control of the mobile communications operations and sales of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation and began operations in 1992.

In 1999 DoCoMo introduced i-mode, a second generation (2G) cellular service that currently has 28 million subscribers in Japan. They are the largest provider of cellular service in Japan. Their goal was to make cellular dialing easy and web access simple. I-mode allows subscribers to use their cellular phone for both voice and data transmission, allowing access to more than 40,000 internet sites and e-mail (they call it i-mail). The novel approach to this service is that there is a small monthly connection charge (around $2.50 per month) and a usage fee that is not based on airtime, but based on the amount of data sent to the unit (per packet transmission cost ranges from $.002 to $.50 per packet). In essence you stay connected at all times, but transmit only when desired. This allows you to receive instant i-mode messages. The internet access is able to navigate transaction type sites (banks, brokers), information sites, database services and entertainment sites (purchase theater tickets or make dinner reservations). The internet sites accessible are in iHTML (a subset of HTML that only requires minor changes to HTML).

There is a good graphic on the first page of the introducing i-mode on the DoCoMo site, that show how where calls are routed for i-mode. The cell phone talks to a packet transmission network, which talks to the DoCoMo i-mode center. The DoCoMo i-mode center can talk to service providers over a lease-line circuit (providing better security than going through the internet) or go through the internet to reach the content provider sites (like the new service, or restaurant guides). The return information follows a backtrack of how the request was generated.

DoCoMo reports that it is working with AT&T Wireless in the U.S. to provide I-mode and third generation (3G) technology here.

DoCoMo English based website on i-mode: http://www.nttdocomo.com/top.html

Spam is a problem on i-mode, below are ways that DoCoMo is handling it on i-mode, complete article can be found:

http://wirelessnewsfactor.com/perl/story/14612.html

Docomo is trying to control spam by:

1. Asking Japanese government to allow them to block any e-mail sent to a large number of invalid address and not allow a return message of not deliverable to the sender.

2. Paying subscribers to change e-mail address frequently.

3. Asking subscribers to use e-mail names with random alpha & numeric characters.

4. Restricting incoming e-mail to maximum of 10 designated domain names.

5. Subscribers have ability to limit incoming e-mails from certain senders, block e-mail from certain senders, and require e-mail to include a password.

Third Generation (3G) cellular service is on its way to the United States and is already up and running in some Asian countries. 3G is an improvement over the current cellular/mobile services we have today. The goals of 3G are higher speed, true multimedia applications (including video transmissions) and a truly universal standard so that a single phone can be used world wide. ( I didn’t know that a cell phone that works in the U.S. doesn’t work in many places in Europe – obviously this is inconvenient for users and expensive for manufacturers).

Currently, there are two competing delivery methods for 3G cellular service being developed and implemented. They are NTT DoCoMo UMTS and Qualcomm Inc. cdma2000.

For some time NTT DoCoMo has been forecasted to be the leader in the 3G delivery system. DoCoMo delivery is based on UMTS (Wall Street Journal called it UMTS – Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, while the DoCoMo web page called it FOMA-Freedom Of Multimedia Access) which is also know as Wide-band CDMA. (WCDMA or W-CDMA is a form of CDMA technology where the bandwidth is appreciably greater than that provided by CDMA, this bandwidth is expected to be around 5 MHz. From howstuffworks.com). The WCDMA delivery system is so different from the current way cellular service is provided that entirely new networks will need to be built, which will be costly and time consuming.

Qualcomm’s cdma2000 delivery system is based on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology. (CDMA is a cellular technology that digitizes data from a number of calls, spreads the data from each call out over then entire bandwidth, overlays the data from multiples calls on top of each other and sends the block of data. At the receiver, the block of data is separated and each piece of data (voice) is sent to the right places. CDMA can carry 8 to 10 separate calls in the same channel space as an analog call. From howstuffworks). CDMA operates in both the 800MHz and 1900MHz frequency bands. Cdma2000 is an upgrade to our current cellular technology, so to implement it would mean that current CDMA networks could be upgraded. But new networks would be need for if using WCDMA.

It would be cheaper and quicker to implement Qualcomm’s cdma2000 than DoCoMo’s WCDMA system.

Side note: Qualcomm wins if cdma2000 is the champion method of delivering 3G service (they own about 80% of the patents), but they also win if UMTS is the preferred method because they own about 20% of those patents.

Can find Qualcomm’s web page at: http://www.qualcomm.com/

Source: Bolande, H.Asher and Robert A. Guth. “Wireless Underdog Holds an Early Lead” Wall Street Journal 20 June 2002; pageB5.

Good background on how cellular works and some definitions on http://www.howstuffworks.com/cell-phone7.htm

There is a group of companies that wants to unite wireless operators and vendors in the Americas (North, Central, and South America as well as the Caribbean) for the very first time, creating a single voice to represent the five popular wireless technologies -- TDMA, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, and UMTS (WCDMA). They formed a corporation called 3GAmericas and their web page can be found at: http://www.3gamericas.org The founding members of the new limited liability corporation include AT&T Wireless (USA), Cingular Wireless (USA), Compaq, Ericsson, Lucent Technologies, Motorola, Nokia, Nortel Networks, Openwave Systems, Rogers AT&T Wireless (Canada), Siemens, and Telecom Personal (Argentina).