Tahoe Networks, Inc., the emerging leader of network infrastructure at the Mobile Internet EdgeT (MIE), is advising that European mobile operators will have to deploy both a scalable and service-enabling network in order to repeat the success of the
business model behind NTT DoCoMo's i-mode. Working with Dutch operator KPN,
NTT DoCoMo will introduce i-mode services in the Netherlands and Belgium in
the second quarter of this year and ePlus in Germany. It is also working
with Hutchison in the UK.

DoCoMo's i-mode service mode is a run-away success in Japan based on the
large amount of open, affordable content and a simple, enjoyable user
experience. Potentially, this success can be repeated on a larger scale
throughout Europe if operators avoid basing mobile data services on a
centralised network model or re-purposed legacy routers, and focus on the
deployment of scalable infrastructure at the edge of the network. This
eliminates the need for costly, non-scaleable solutions like the localised
server farms, which DoCoMo had to deploy to cope with the large number of
early outages they experiences resulting from breakaway demand.

"The extraordinary success of i-mode sprang from NTT DoCoMo's active role as
a market-maker and not a market-regulator, providing the conditions in which
content providers and application developers could innovate and let
end-users decide which services they wanted," said Anthony Alles, CEO at
Tahoe Networks. "The underlying infrastructure challenges associated with
its day-to-day operations - including managing large numbers of content and
application providers and scaling for traffic growth - still need to be
solved before i-mode like services arise in different locales, however."

"I am not convinced that i-mode technology will enjoy much success in
Europe," commented Declan Lonergan, director of wireless research and
consulting at the Yankee Group Inc., of London. "Although DoCoMo brings to
Europe a valuable business model, with a content and services ecosystem that
drove significant traffic and revenues in Japan, it may be hindered by some
of the technical problems it has encountered at home, as well as by the
strong commitment to WAP technology and services exhibited by most major
European mobile operators."

"For the Mobile Internet, operators need to aggregate hundreds of
thousands, even millions, of subscribers in a single platform, creating a
huge networking challenge," continued Alles. "In fact, scalability and
robustness go hand-in-hand. If you reboot with that many subscribers
attached to the network, they all go down. In a business where you are
monetizing user traffic, this equates to significant lost revenues and
serious customer satisfaction issues."

Operators must select infrastructure that not only routes the mobile
internet traffic but also gives operators the network intelligence - the
capability of subscriber identity - they need to deploy personalised,
next-generation services by both gathering real-time data to enable
sophisticated billing, revenue-sharing and mobile CRM (mCRM) business models
as well as applying services policies and preferences down to the individual
user level. It also needs to be reliable, available, scalable and
serviceable. Replicating i-Mode's success outside of Japan requires a
scalable and robust infrastructure based on standards, with the flexibility
to enable the inevitable variety of applications and services and the
ability to support the rapid growth in subscribers and traffic sure to
follow.