NEC Corporation and its subsidiary NEC Italia s.r.l has announced the delivery of its Mobile Internet Platform and mobile handsets to COSMOTE Mobile Telecommunications S.A.’s “i-mode?” service, which will be provided commercially, with an initial free period, from June 7th 2004. NEC has achieved rapid implementation in cooperation with COSMOTE so that the i-mode service can be launched well in advance of the “Athens 2004” Olympic Games, of which COSMOTE is a Grand National Sponsor.
COSMOTE is the leading and largest mobile operator in Greece, a top-class mobile market with high cellular user penetration. COSMOTE plans to gradually introduce i-mode services in other markets such as Albania, Bulgaria and Macedonia.
NEC’s highly reliable Mobile Internet Platform is an enabler for the provision of i-mode service, one of the world’s leading and most advanced Mobile Internet Services, is now available in Greece. This platform is an integrated solution that realizes unified operations and service management, composed of well-integrated subsystems. One of these is a gateway that enables COSMOTE’s customers to gain easy, quick and secure access to the large variety of rich content offered by i-mode service on GPRS mobile packet networks. A mail subsystem enables customers to enjoy functional i-mode mail services with video and picture attachments. A portal subsystem shows service menus and membership content menus on each mobile terminal. The platform offers complete management of user information, content and services information, agent charging and billing (including real-time for pre-paid) in addition to flexible support of new features to be released in future.
NEC’s i-mode mobile handset “N410i” is compact and striking with a full-scale 1.3M Pixel integrated camera which enables users to take rich pictures. The N410i also features a 2.2 inch 65K color QVGA main LCD display, not only for high-resolution pictures but also for MPEG4 movies. Developed based on expertise gained from the Mobile Internet markets in Japan and Europe, the N410 is very suitable for accessing mobile Internet applications and rich content, comprising 64 tone polyphonic ringtones, DoJa JAVA Applications and USB & IrDA Connectivity. NEC also provides the “N331i” with 100K Pixel integrated camera and “N400i” with 300K Pixel integrated camera and an MPEG4 player.
To provide attractive Mobile Internet services for both 2.5 and 3G, NEC is to expand their Mobile Multimedia Platform business, targeting operators in Europe and further afield who wish to enhance customer satisfaction and increase revenue. NEC plans to add to their Mobile Applications line-up and aspires to gaining the leading position in the Mobile Internet market. As a total solution provider for Mobile Internet solutions, NEC has strong competence in mobile infrastructure systems, mobile application platforms, and an impressive portfolio of content and competitive i-mode mobile handsets. Worldwide, NEC’s Mobile Internet Platform is currently operated by Wind in Italy, Telefonica Moviles Espana, Bouygues Telecom in France and Taiwan Far EasTone Telecommunications.