The NEC N530i i-Mode Mobile Above
KG Telecom announces to launch the highly expected i-mode service in Taiwan on June 20. KG Telecom will be the first company to launch i-mode service in Asia outside Japan.
Based on DoCoMo¡¦s i-mode spirit, service content of KG Telecom¡¦s i-mode can be classified into four categories as transaction, information, entertainment, and, database plus the most popular and frequently used i-mode e-mail service. About 80 website contents provided by approximately 70 content providers both nationally and internationally when the i-mode launched.
KG Telecom chose N530i made by NEC Corporation as its first i-mode terminal. N530i is specially developed and produced for i-mode users in Taiwan market.
With i-mode e-mail service, users can send and receive emails from their i-mode handsets to their PC, or vise versa. Users can exchange e-mail with other i-mode subscribers, and also with anyone who has an e-mail address.
The four service categories include:
Transaction: balance checking, accounts transaction, stock transaction, ticketing, hotel reservation, and e-commerce.
Information: real time news, weather forecast, credit card, Information inquiry, real time stocking analysis, industry news, fashion news, and real time traffic report.
Entertainment: ringing tone and standby screen download, fortune telling, on-line game, KTV reservation, song information, and movie schedule.
Database: telephone directory, travel guide, gourmet guide, dictionary, on-line learning, road map, and job hunting service.
The monthly fee for i-mode service is 168 NT dollars which is equivalent to 840k bytes and deductible for data transmission fee. Most content is charged mainly from 20 NTD to 50 NTD. Both free and paid content will be available. i-mode service will charge consumers by the volume of data transmission rather than the air-time spent on the transmission. At the cost of 0.2 NTD for every 1000 bytes, users can download data information at their need without concerns on excessive expenditure.
KG Telecom¡¦s first i-mode handset, N530i, features a larger screen with color display and high sound quality of ringing tones. The handset supports GPRS compatibility and i-mode compact HTML contents. The price will range from NT$ 7900 to NT$ 12700 varied by different rate plan.
