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Strategies & Market Trends : Drillbits & Bottlerockets -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (8283)	4/18/2001 9:39:29 PM
From: John Pitera	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 15481

SNE and NTDMY's (NTT Docomo) charts are perking up. you know NTDMY has 22 million subscribers now..... DoCoMo to upgrade I-Mode systems By Gail Nakada, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 5:52 AM ET Apr 18, 2001 The rapid uptake of I-mode services by Japanese consumers is forcing NTT DoCoMo to upgrade its Internet-enabled network to handle the heavy traffic. DoCoMo's network, even stretched to its current capacity, generally runs smoothly, but delays and system failures have grown more common, especially late at night when users take advantage of lower rates and flood routers. DoCoMo already has over 22 million I-mode subscribers, and that number is bound to increase. Faster phones packed with cutting edge applications - especially new Java-enabled 3G handsets debuting this May and through the summer - are expected to attract new customers. "The number of subscribers has grown very rapidly and will increase more. We are preparing for that," said a DoCoMo spokesperson. The Nihon Keizai business daily reported Wednesday that DoCoMo (NTDMY: news, msgs, alerts) is budgeting 50 billion yen ($407 million) on the upgrade, and that NEC and NTT Data have already signed on to handle the systems integration, which could triple I-mode's capacity. While DoCoMo admits that it is indeed working out the details of the upgrade, the company denies that it has set a budget or decided on partners yet. "We have not settled on any of this," the spokesman said. "We have not even set a target date for the start of the upgrade or issued a final budget." Both NEC (NIPNY: news, msgs, alerts) and NTT Data declined to comment on the Nikkei report. Amazon Japan goes wireless Amazon.com, which already provides mobile access in the U.K. and Germany, has turned a virtual page in Japan's wireless space. Amazon (AMZN: news, msgs, alerts) has linked with DoCoMo to list on the I-mode official contents page, so that subscribers now have mobile access to the 2 million titles currently on Amazon's Japanese Web site. Service includes one-click access to users' accounts from the Amazon I-Mode Web page, and shoppers can also sign up for book reviews or other topics of interest sent via opt-in e-mail. Amazon launched its Japan unit on November 1, 2000.