This will combine NTT DoCoMo’s leading technology, skills and experience in wireless data with KPN Mobile and TIM’s collective scale, footprint and local market insights to roll-out i-mode like services on a pan-European basis. The Parties expect to launch their HTML-based wireless Internet offering in Europe within this year, initially targeting over 30 million mobile subscribers of KPN Mobile and TIM in Belgium, Germany, Italy and The Netherlands.
As an initial step of the alliance, NTT DoCoMo Royal KPN and KPN Mobile have also entered into a Memorandum of Understanding in which they finalized the key terms of their relationship, setting up a Joint Venture which consolidates mobile data businesses of KPN Mobile (Netherlands), E-Plus (Germany) and KPN Orange (Belgium). KPN Mobile and NTT DoCoMo will hold a 75% and a 25% equity interest respectively.
NTT DoCoMo and its European partners plan to provide mobile Internet services based on i-mode in wide areas of Europe through its cooperation with KPN Mobile and TIM, to move ahead before the start of full-scale mobile multimedia services on 3G/UMTS networks.
