Japan's J-phone Launches Java Cell Phones

H O N G   K O N G, Dec. 5 -- J-phone, the mobile communications arm of Japan Telecom Co. Ltd, the country’s third-largest carrier, said today that it would introducehandsets using Java software by June 2001.

J-phone and its partner Vodafone Group Plc. made theannouncement along with Sun Microsystems Inc. at atelecommunications conference in Hong Kong, and said that themeasure would allow for easier development of more variedcontent for Internet services delivered over mobile phones.

Japan’s wireless carriers have been racing to develop theirhandsets to offer advanced services such as support for the Javaprogramming language, which was developed by Sun.

“It is unlikely that we can introduce it in the firstquarter of next year [January-March] so it will be in the secondquarter [April-June],” said Kyoichiro Kouri, chief operatingofficer of J-Phone East Co. Ltd., the company’s biggest unitserving heavily populated Eastern Japan which includes Tokyo.

Java’s Versatility

Software written in Java can run under a variety of computeroperating systems and boosts the range of content and featureson Internet pages. It will be introduced in handsets offered byNTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan’s biggest wireless carrier, from January.

J-phone has 3.5 million subscribers browsing the Internet onits cellular phones through business card-sized screens.J-phone’s service is called “J-sky” and competes directly with NTTDoCoMo, which has more than 14 million users connected to theWeb on its ‘i-mode’ Internet system.

“We would like to begin by offering entertainment services,”Kouri said in an interview, explaining that it would appeal toJ-phone’s customer base with its relatively young users.

“But since their ability to spend money on wireless servicesis limited, we don’t expect average revenue per user to rise bythat much.”

At the same time, Kouri said that J-phone was feelingincreased pricing pressure from No. 2 wireless carrier DDICorp, which is better known as KDDI and recently introducedsteep discounts by slashing student rates in half.

Competition Heating Up