TOKYO—J-Phone, a Vodafone Group operator in Japan, announced it will postpone its third-generation (3G) service launch until December to provide “global standard service.” J-Phone had previously planned to launch its 3G service on 30 June.
Prior to the nationwide commercial service launch in December, J-Phone will provide an experimental service beginning 30 June in Tokyo targeting a few thousand users.
Darryl Green, president of J-Phone, said at a press conference on Wednesday that because the standard for wideband-CDMA (W-CDMA) technology, on which J-Phone’s 3G service will be based, had been largely changed at the 3GPP meeting last March, J-Phone has no choice but to postpone its commercial service launch. Green repeatedly said J-Phone would launch its 3G service using the global standard to provide the full benefits of 3G service to end users. The Vodafone Group is planning to launch 3G service in Europe at the end of 2002. If that happens, J-Phone’s 3G service users will be able to use the same handsets in Japan and in European countries where Vodafone offers 3G service.
According to Green, during the experimental service period from June to December, J-Phone is going to provide voice service, 64 kilobits per second (kbps) circuit-switch data transmission service, 384 kbps packet communications service and international roaming without a basic monthly fee. NEC and Sanyo will provide W-CDMA handsets for J-Phone. Nokia may also provide its handset.
In December, J-Phone will launch the 3G service in all major cities around the country. It is targeting to achieve 90-percent population coverage by March 2004. Green said the postponement will not impose a significant negative impact on the handset and infrastructure vendors.
NTT DoCoMo, the leading Japanese carrier, launched 3G service last October and expanded its service area nationwide earlier this month, however, NTT DoCoMo has so far failed to get many users for its 3G service. KDDI launched cdma2000 1x service on 1 April as well.
