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Title: NTT DoCoMo to Battle Glitch in Internet-Linked Mobile Phone Service

TOKYO (AFP) - - A series of tranmission glitches has prompted Japan's NTT DoCoMo Inc. to set up two more centres to solve the clogging-up of its Internet-linked mobile phone service, the company said Wednesday.

Subscribers across the country "found it difficult to access the Internet" via DoCoMo's trendy "i-mode" mobile phones between 10:58 p.m. Tuesday and 1:15 a.m. Wednesday, a company spokeswoman said.

"Similar phenomena have occurred at similar hours five times this month. On March 28, the breakdown lasted a little longer," said the spokeswoman, Yoko Toda.

DoCoMo, which commands an overwhelming domestic market share in mobile phones with its strong brand image, has only one i-mode transmission centre, which is in Tokyo.

The company now plans to establish a new transmission centre in Yokohama by the summer and another in Osaka or its vicinity by March 2001, Toda said.

"Meanwhile, equipment at the Tokyo centre will be gradually expanded," she added.

DoComo will in no way curb the process of allowing regular mobile phone customers to switch to the i-mode service, as reported in the leading economic daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the spokeswoman said.

The i-mode service was launched in Feburary 1999 and the number of users has reached 6.11 million.

NTT DoCoMo controlled some 80 percent of the Japanese market for Internet access via mobile phones as of late February.

The company announced plans earlier this year to equip all of its cellular phones with i-mode Internet-browsing functions this year and to increase the number of i-mode users to more than 10 million by the end of the business year.

http://www.voila.co.uk/News/afp/media/000419121424.xl6oqzkz.html

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), April 19, 2000