Japan's leading mobile telecom operator NTT DoCoMo has launched the world's first third generation mobile phone service. Users of this revolutionary phone will be able to surf the internet and see pictures of the people they are talking to, and eventually they will be able to watch movies and listen to music on their handsets. NTT DoCoMo hopes to snap up six million domestic subscribers by March 2004. The service, named Freedom of Mobile Multi-media Access, or FOMA, will initially be limited to a 30km radius around the centre of Tokyo. NTT says it plans to introduce the service to the Osaka, Kyoto and Nagoya areas by this years end, and to the rest of Japan by spring 2002. But the company is not limiting its ambitions to the domestic market. "In Europe, we hope to start third generation service by the end of this year or early next year," said NTT DoCoMo spokeswoman Junko Miyazaki.
