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mTelefonica Writes Down Assets to the Value of 6,552.4 Million Euros
and Is Set
NTT
DoCoMo, Inc., Telefonica Moviles S.A, and Telefonica Moviles Espana
S.A. announced today an agreement under which i-mode, the world's most
popular mobile internet service, will be launched in Spain in the first
half of 2003.
The three parties signed a license agreement under which DoCoMo will provide patents, know-how and technologies needed for to offer the i-mode service on its Global Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network in Spain. holds the largest share of the Spanish market in mobile telecoms. The pact will remain valid for five years from July 24, 2002.
The conventional service currently has 1.5 million active clients among more than four (4) million registered users, and 250 different content providers. i-mode based subscribers will have fast and easy access to e-mail and a variety of other online services and content via mobile phone, as i-mode users do in Japan. Using the dual-browser handset, i-mode based users will be able to receive content written in either i-mode-compatible HTML or WML1.X markup languages.
Separately from the i-mode licensing pact, DoCoMo and S.A. today also formally agreed to form a business and technology alliance in overall mobile communications. The two companies will share GPRS/SIM card technologies and know-how, as well as opinions on handset evolution towards 3G (W-CDMA), mainly through personnel exchanges. They also will jointly study such possibilities as implementing international roaming services.
Luis Lada, ' chairman and CEO said "the agreement with NTT DoCoMo will enable the company to increase even further its leadership in the area of innovation in Spain as it will be possible to offer customers the fullest potential in the multimedia mobile services that i-mode technology represents. In this way, will further strengthen the possibilities of in Spain, a mobile internet service access platform that already has four million registered users and a wide range of services and content."
"We are very excited that i-mode service will expand into another European market. We know that , as Spain's No. 1 operator, has the capacity to deploy the service successfully in that country. We are looking forward to seeing an expanding i-mode community sharing the benefits of i-mode service," said Keiji Tachikawa, president and CEO of NTT DoCoMo, Inc.
In Europe, DoCoMo has licensed i-mode technology to KPN Mobile N.V., E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co.KG, and Bouygues Telecom S.A.-in the Netherlands and Belgium, Germany, and France respectively. Now Spain, another major European market, will join the list, increasing the worldwide growth of mobile multimedia services using i-mode technology.
