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"It certainly looks now like DoCoMo is going to import I-mode into Europe, with its plans with Telecom Italia Mobile and KPN of the Netherlands to developing Internet services across Europe," said Paul Phelan, a technology and telecoms analyst with Davy stockbrokers.
"The services could be launched in a number of European countries within the next six months and they are ready to launch in the UK and Ireland."
A three way agreement between the companies will see each investing initially USD30 million to build two development centres in Italy and the Netherlands where new applications based on I-mode will be developed for the European market. The services of the joint venture will include gaming, exchange of e-mail and images, and "advanced location based information on traffic, restaurants, parking and so on," the companies said in a statement.
The companies said the mobile Internet services will initially be introduced in Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Belgium, a market of about 165 million, and other countries will be added elsewhere in Europe through arrangements including mobile virtual network operators.
The companies also said that discussions are in progress with a selected number of handset manufacturers to introduce handsets that can deliver I-mode and WAP. Combined I-mode/WAP handsets would not be available until the end of 2001 at the earliest.
Up to now DoCoMo strategy was to take small stakes in companies but the jury was still out on whether they were going to introduce I-mode to Europe according to Phelan. However, a lack of availability of handsets for the packet switched services such as GPRS -- there is currently only one GPRS handset made by Motorola available on the market -- is likely to slow down the changeover.
It is widely known that in the trialling of GPRS by operators, handsets have been overheating, delaying the roll-out of the faster network. But when difficulties are overcome and GPRS is introduced, this could see a resurrection of WAP, with I-mode and WAP being offered in -parallel to consumers according to Phelan.
He said that WAP up to now has had to operate over a circuit switched network which has impaired its performance and has been compared to I-mode, which has been using a GPRS type packet switched network in Japan.
"The real test will be to see both systems operating over a packet switched network, and WAP's performance may in fact prove to be better than I-mode working on a faster network," Phelan said.
There has been a debate as to whether I-mode's success was particular to the Japanese market and Japanese culture and whether it is transferable to Europe. Entertainment has proved to be the killer content for I-mode in Japan, just as e-mail was for the Internet, but it is unclear whether Europeans will take to the same kind of entertainment.
"As to whether I-mode will succeed in Europe, it is too early to say," Phelan said.
NTT Docomo says that I-mode has two thirds of the Japanese Internet mobile market. European operators will have to make the cost entry point low, especially for the youth market, if they are going to emulate Japan's successes here.
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