O2 all set to launch i-mode in Britain |
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Tue, 27 Sep 2005 19:05
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LONDON: Britain's mobile phone company O2 Plc is readying to bring to the country the first i-mode Internet phones pioneered by Japanese partner NTT DoCoMo. The company, subject of an acquisition controversy involving Deutsche Telekom, will have a multi-million pound advertising campaign for the launch.
O2, a spin-off from BT Group Plc, said the campaign will be the largest it has ever undertaken ever since the demerger. The company has earmarked some 20 million pounds for the same.
The service will be available from 1 October and the company will use two handsets made by Japan's NEC and two from South Korea's Samsung. The phones will cost 79.99 pounds to 279 pounds for pre-paid deals and zero to 79.99 pounds for contract packages. The phones have cameras, tri or quad-band services and MP3 players. One of the models is a 3g phone with facility for video calls.
The company said as an inaugural offer, it will provide web browsing, email, picture messaging and content subscriptions free until end-2005. Thereafter, there will charges of three pounds for web browsing and downloading of 100 pages, 10 pence for e-mails without attachments and 25 pence for emails with attachments.
World over, there are 12 mobile phone operators, which provide i-mode service under licence from DoCoMo in 22 countries, including Russia, France, Italy and Spain. In Japan, the country that adopted i-mode in the first instance, DoCoMo provides the service to some 43 million people. O2 had declined to introduce i-mode two years ago, but it says the service is more stabilised and there are better handsets. It will start i-mode service in Ireland next week and in Germany during the first half of 2006.
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