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Japan's DoCoMo gets base in London

Will Knight ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 29 Sep 2000 15:17 BST

Japanese mobile telecommunications firm NTT DoCoMo announced Friday it is to spend £3m establishing a foothold in Europe. DoCoMo will create a headquarters in London and sign an agreement with Dutch controlled mobile firm KPN Mobile.

The moves increases the likelihood that DoCoMo with roll out its i-mode interactive mobile system in Europe. The new subsidiary -- DoCoMo Europe -- will include a research facility in Germany.

DoCoMo previously invested 5bn euros in KPN Mobile and will now consider co-developing broadband mobile technology and licensing i-mode technology for deployment on KPN's network.

Although Europe is ahead of the US in developing broadband technologies, with GPRS already available and UMTS on the horizon, the content standard WAP has met with considerable criticism from industry observers and has failed to wow consumers. I-mode, on the other hand, offers a more content rich Internet service which has been a massive hit with Japanese mobile phone users.

DoCoMo is globalising fast, having announced a deal with leading US Internet service provider AOL Wednesday to develop and market mobile Internet services.

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