DDI-IDO's cdmaOne Roaming Service to Start in Korea, Hong Kong in April
nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com
Not as flexible as a R-UIM equipped CDMA phone. IMHO.
April 10, 2000 (TOKYO) -- DDI Corp.'s DDI Cellular Telephone Group companies
and IDO Corp. announced the imminent launch of "GLOBAL PASSPORT," an
international roaming service that will enable users of cdmaOne portable phones to
use them when traveling outside of Japan.
The new service will be the first in Japan to offer international roaming for terrestrial
mobile communications.
The GLOBAL PASSPORT service, set to start operations April 21, will allow
cdmaOne portable phones to be used abroad with the same telephone number as
that used in Japan. At first, the international regions covered will be Korea, through
Korean telecoms operator Shinsegi Telecom Inc, and Hong Kong, through
Hutchison Telecommunications (Hong Kong) Ltd. The service area will then be
expanded to include the United States this summer and Australia from September.
There will be no special charges for receiving the service itself, although users will
be charged for any actual time they spend using their phone abroad. These
charges will be levied not only when the user makes outgoing calls, but also when
incoming calls are received. For example, if a user travels to Korea and makes a
call back to Japan, then the fee will be 250 yen per minute. If the phone is used to
make a call to a number within Korea, then the fee will be 50 yen per minute. The
user has to pay a flat fee of 180 yen per minute to receive incoming calls,
regardless of where the caller is calling from. (104.98 yen = US$1)
In order to make use of GLOBAL PASSPORT, a special type of cdmaOne phone
unit, designed to be compatible with the service, is needed. Currently, the only such
phone scheduled to appear anytime soon is the cdmaOne C111SA model that will
go on sale April 21, the same day as the service launch.
(Nikkei Communications)
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