Vic, the world's first third-generation wireless phone service began in Japan yesterday.
May 31, 2001
TOKYO -- The world's first third-generation wireless phone service began in Japan yesterday, but only as a limited rollout of 3,300 handsets in the Tokyo area.
Japan's eager gadget fans -- picked from 147,000 applicants -- lined up for models at an office of the nation's top mobile carrier, NTT DoCoMo.
It didn't seem to matter that the most glamorous of the phones, the video phone, has been delayed for up to a month because of software glitches.
The only models available were an upgraded, speedier version of NTT DoCoMo's current Net-linking i-mode phones and a computer-card model for data transmission.
"My first impression is it's great," said Shintaro Yanagisawa, 24, a marketing company employee, who got an i-mode upgrade. "It's so fast."
The third-generation cell phones, which promise to relay video and eventually allow music downloads, zip data up to 40 times faster than current mobile phones.
NTT DoCoMo is hoping 3G phones will become the portable wireless computers of the future for cybersurfing, corporate data transmission and electronic commerce.
The company initially had promised full commercial 3G service for the Tokyo area for late May but delayed that to October because of software bugs.
NTT DoCoMo already received government approval for the 3G phones' voice capabilities, but the company needs to submit more test results to show data and video transmission also works properly before Oct. 1, said Mitsuhiro Shiozaki, a government official overseeing telecommunications.
"It's clear NTT DoCoMo is falling behind schedule. I don't know whether they can have everything ready before Oct. 1," he said.
NTT DoCoMo plans to expand 3G to the rest of Japan by 2002 and is promising to offer 3G in Europe and the United States as well. |
