i-Mode - Introduction

i-Mode, stands for Internet Mode is a microbrowser technology that supports text, graphics, audio, and video for Web access over the Japanese cellular network. It was introduced by a team led by Mari Matsunaga in February 1999 at NTT DoCoMo

Fortune Magazine recently selected Mari Matsunaga as one of the most powerful women in business in Japan.

i-Mode is one of the most successful services offering wireless web browsing and e-mail services from mobile phones in Japan.

i-Mode provides packet-data transmission, which enables operators to charge their customers according to the volume of data transmitted and users do not pay for the time they are connected to a website or service.

Transmission between the handhelds and the i-Mode-enabled cell sites is via packet mode, using packets of 128 octets at high-speed data transmission rates.

i-Mode customer base is increasing exponentially every day in the whole world and is being provided worldwide through DoCoMo s partners through a pcensing scheme.

The current i-Mode center is called CiRCUS in DoCoMo s Kawasaki office and the operation support system is called CARNiVAL, which is hosted in the Toranomon JT Building.

There are DoCoMo s competitors in the market who launched very similar mobile data services − KDDI launched EZweb, and J-Phone launched J-Sky etc.

i-Mode History