OXFORD, United Kingdom—KPN Mobile, the financially troubled Dutch operator, will later this month start the first practical i-mode tests in Europe through its joint venture with Japan’s NTT DoCoMo. The company said that some 60 national and international content sites would be made available covering information, communication, entertainment and m-commerce.
This move comes as Stockholm, Sweden-based Strand Consult claimed in a new report that i-mode is unlikely to succeed in Europe under current conditions. The research firm, which said that bringing i-mode to Europe is like importing a Japanese car to a place with no roads, urged European operators to make more of an effort to attract content and application providers to existing wireless technologies. Strand claimed that short message service (SMS) and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) applications are already widely available, and those technologies provide a more open framework for developers than i-mode.
Regardless of these comments, KPN Mobile said that its content providers would offer certified i-mode services through strict agreements concerning user friendliness and customer service, even forcing firms to update services to ensure they provide significant added value for subscribers. However, KPN Mobile confirmed it plans to charge 15 percent for handling content payments through its billing system, while DoCoMo handles the transactions for only 9 percent. The company said it will initially test the service with less than 100 users, prior to widescale deployment during the first quarter of 2002.
