NTT DoCoMo to Expand 3G FOMA International Roaming and Videophone Services

ASIA : NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries announced today that they will expand FOMA® 3G international roaming and videophone services in Europe and Asia.

Starting from July 12, WORLD WING® and WORLD WALKER® users in Seoul, Korea will be able to use the FOMA N900iG handset for voice communications and accessing i-mode® . Until now, a dedicated phone was required to use roaming services in Korea. Users will also be able to send/receive i-mode mail under the same address that they use in Japan.

Germany will join the lineup of countries where DoCoMo users can enjoy videophone roaming services, followed by Italy on July 26.

In addition, DoCoMo has added the following operators to its roaming partners in the countries where DoCoMo is already providing roaming services.

3G Voice Communications and SMS
- KTF (Korea)
- Smartone (Hong Kong)
- Sonera (Finland)
- TIM (Italy)

3G Packet Communication Service
- KTF (Korea)
- Smartone (Hong Kong)
- Sonera (Finland)
- TIM (Italy)

3G Videophone Service
- Smartone (Hong Kong)
- T-Mobile Deutschland (Germany)
- TIM (Italy)

The roaming services are available for users of the W-CDMA International roaming handset such as M1000 and N900iG, which is based on 3GPP. Also, users who would like to rent N900iG need to subscribe to WORLD WING or WORLD WALKER-PLUS.

From July 13, FOMA videophone users who subscribe to the WORLD CALL® service will be able to enjoy videophone calls with 3G videophone customers of mobile operators FET (Taiwan), Smartone (Hong Kong) and T-Mobile Deutschland (Germany). Taiwan and Germany will be added to the FOMA videophone service of WORLD CALL, followed by TIM (Italy, including the Vatican and San Marino) on July 27.

As a result of these additions, DoCoMo will offer i-mode packet communications roaming in 44 countries/regions and videophone roaming in 10 countries/regions.

Furthermore, users in Japan will be able to make international videophone calls to 13countries/regions.