Tuesday May 2, 12:09 am Eastern Time
UPDATE 1-Japan's DDI to reveal cellphone format next week
(Updates to clarify licence is for broadband service)
TOKYO, May 2 (Reuters) - DDI Corp , Japan's third-largest telecommunications company, said on Tuesday it will announce next week the technology format to be used for its third-generation cellphones.
DDI will announce the format chosen -- cdma2000 or W-CDMA -- when it submits an application to the government sometime next week, a company spokesman said. DDI is set to merge in October with KDD Corp , Japan's largest international telecommunications service provider, and IDO Corp, a cell phone unit of Toyoto Motor Corp .
The Japanese government plans to issue three licences to provide broadband service, which is capable of transmitting huge volumes of data, enabling Net-surfing cellphone users to download even full-motion video.
DDI must submit its application by May 12. Its main competitors, NTT Docomo and Japan Telecom's cellular phone arm J-Phone, have already applied for licences.
DDI has not yet decided which format to use for its third-generation cellphone service, the spokesman said.
Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun financial daily said on Tuesday that DDI had decided to use a U.S. format called cdma2000, promoted by Qualcomm Inc (NasdaqNM:QCOM - news). Japan's Kyocera Corp , which owns 25 percent of DDI, in February bought Qualcomm's cellphone manufacturing business.
DDI also has the option of using the W-CDMA (wide-band code division multiple access) technology promoted by Docomo and European carriers.
``We're considering both formats and we have not reached any decision yet,'' the DDI spokesman said.
Japanese media reported earlier this year that DDI appeared to be leaning towards using the European format, but DDI officials have repeatedly said it has yet to reach a decision.
The cdma2000 format would enable DDI to cut costs by taking advantage of existing infrastructure used by its current cdmaOne mobile phones, which were also developed by Qualcomm, the Nihon Keizai report said.
DDI shares ended morning Tokyo trade up 10,000 yen or 0.78 percent at 1,300,000.
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