Generation UMTS

21st January , 2004

Europe : Alcatel and Fujitsu Limited announced the official opening of a FOMA® showroom showcasing NTT DoCoMo’s third-generation (3G) FOMA mobile communication services in France.

Inset shows a similar showroom this one is based in Central Park FOMA shop in Japan.

The new facility is located in the premises of Alcatel, Fujitsu’s 3G partner, in the suburbs of Paris. This is the only FOMA showroom available in France.

This showroom enables visitors to directly access NTT DoCoMo’s groundbreaking FOMA network and experience the world’s first commercial 3G end-user services based on W-CDMA technology. To achieve this, Alcatel and Fujitsu, who jointly operate the Paris FOMA showroom, connected this facility to the FOMA network in Japan through an international private line. Fujitsu has provided the FOMA handsets and base station.

By offering industry opinion leaders the opportunity to experience live FOMA 3G services, the project is meant to foster a better understanding of business opportunities that could be generated by innovative 3G services, and it lays the ground for the successful introduction of 3G/UMTS commercial services in Europe. With this advanced facility, Alcatel is in an ideal position to leverage and extend the mobile multimedia servicesexperience it has already gained through major customer projects and its world-wide network of 3G Reality Centres. 3GPP-compliant third-generation systems are developed by Evolium SAS, a joint venture company established by Alcatel and Fujitsu.

A wealth of feature-rich 3G services, already enjoyed by NTT DoCoMo’s subscribers in Japan, are available in the Paris-based FOMA showroom: i-mode® , i-appli®, Multi-access and Internet access on PC (see details below *). In addition, the showroom will feature international mobile video telephony between FOMA users in France and UMTS ones in the UK.

“FOMA is the world’s first commercial 3G mobile communications service based on W-CDMA technology,” stated Dr. Kota Kinoshita, Executive Vice President and CTO, NTT DoCoMo, Inc. “Thanks to the Paris FOMA Showroom, French and European industry opinion leaders are now in the unique position to enjoy, in a real life situation, the state-of-the-art 3G FOMA mobile communications services as if they were in Japan. We are thankful to Fujitsu and Alcatel whose dedicated teamwork made the success of this project possible,” Dr. Kinoshita added.

“Fujitsu is a major strategic partner of NTT DoCoMo for W-CDMA technology,” stated Hiroaki Takeichi, Corporate Vice President, System Products Business Group (Telecommunications) of Fujitsu Limited. “Fujitsu’s strategy is to provide quality network and IT solutions to its customers, in particular to NTT DoCoMo. Building upon the success of Evolium SAS, the Alcatel-Fujitsu joint venture for 3G infrastructure, the implementation of the Paris FOMA Showroom is yet another foundation of the important business potential generated by our W-CDMA collaboration with Alcatel,” Takeichi added.

“Alcatel’s mobile strategy is driven by end-user services,“ stated Marc Rouanne, Chief Operating Officer of Alcatel’s mobile activities. “For Europeans, this FOMA Showroom is an invaluable window on DoCoMo’s advanced services. It will allow us to further increase our knowledge and understanding of end-users’ experience with mobile multimedia services, in complement to our 3G Reality Centres program, with the overall objective to accelerate the delivery of appealing 3G services,” Rouanne concluded.

Alcatel's highly efficient business model is based on its multi-standard Evolium™ solutions for GSM (800/900/1800/1900 MHz), GPRS, EDGE and UMTS. Evolium SAS, Alcatel’s joint venture with Fujitsu, delivers a mobile infrastructure that is 3GPP-compliant, field-proven and capitalizes on the Japanese 3G experience.

*Available services:
- i-mode® (a high-speed packet transmission service at speeds of up to
384 kbps),
- i-appli® (an application service that uses Java programs),
- i-motionTM (a service that offers short audio and video content),
- i-motionTM mail (a video mail service that sends video clips with
sound to other FOMA terminals and PCs),
- M-stage® V-Live TM (a video streaming service that transmits a
variety of live and archived video content using circuit switched 64 kbps data transmission),
- M-stage Visual Net (a videophone service that can accommodate up to eight people),
- Multi-access (a service that can simultaneously handle voice call and packet communications),
- Internet access on PC (high-speed packet transmission at up to packet switched 384 kbps and circuit switched 64 kbps).

FOMA, i-mode, i-motion, and i-motion mail are trademarks or registered trademarks of NTT DoCoMo, Inc. in Japan and other countries. M-stage is a registered trademark of NTT DoCoMo, Inc. in Japan. V-Live is a trademark of NTT DoCoMo, Inc. in Japan. i ppli is a trademark of NTT DoCoMo, Inc. in Japan and other countries. FOMA, i-mode, i-motion mail, M-Stage, V-Live and i-appli services are only available to subscribers in Japan.

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