TOKYO—J-Phone, the third-largest mobile carrier in Japan, announced it will launch a new e-mail service with motion pictures. According to J-Phone, which is now a Vodafone Group company, using the service, J-Phone users can send e-mail including up to five seconds of motion pictures starting on 1 March.
To facilitate the new service, J-Phone will triple its data transmission speed to 28.8 kilobits per second (kbps). J-Phone will launch a new mobile terminal manufactured by Sharp for the service. The standard price for the new handset is 62,000 yen (US$464) per unit.
J-Phone has been offering an e-mail service that allows users to attach a still photo. Users of the service can send an e-mail with an attached still photo taken with a tiny camera built into the handset.
The service is winning popularity. The number of users of the service called “Sha mail”—sha means “taking a photo” in Japanese—has exceeded 3 million.
