Tokyo-based NTT DoCoMo Inc., one of the world's leading mobile communications company, announced its strategic partnership with Hutchison Essar (Hutch) Friday to provide Internet services in mobile telephony for Hutch users from 2007.

The mobile data service i-mode (wireless Internet service) is already available in 16 countries to about 53 million people.

'We will launch the service during 2007,' Asim Ghosh, managing director, Hutchison Essar told at a press conference.

'This Internet service will be different from the existing email or net service that we provide to our customers using General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)-enabled handsets as its i-mode will be more broad-based in content and it will be a PC based protocol not Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) based,' Ghosh pointed out.

However, the service when launched will be available only in i-mode enabled handsets. Currently, such handsets are not available in India.

According to Hutch, the company is speaking with strategic partners of i-mode for handsets and refused to disclose the prices.

'The process is still underway and we are trying to provide low-cost handsets that would be priced competitively,' Ghosh averred.

In Japan, the cost of an i-mode enabled handset varies somewhere between $100-$250.

'In India we are still working on the price issue,' said Takeshi Natsuno, senior vice-president and managing director of multimedia services, NTT DoCoMo Inc.

'The cost of subscribing to this service in Japan is $25 per month per customer. In Japan, the i-mode content market has been expanding over $140 million monthly,' Natsuno added.

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