World's first 3G phone service launched

NTT DoCoMo has launched the world's first 3G phone service.

Users of the new phone will be able to surf the internet and see pictures of the people they are talking to.

Technical problems and an unstable network forced DoCoMo to postpone its initial launch in May.

3G will allow mobile users to download material from the internet 40 times faster than they can at present.

The Japanese telecommunications firm hopes to conquer the markets in Europe and America, and snap up six million domestic subscribers by March 2004.

The service, named Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access, or Foma, will initially be limited to a 20-mile radius around a number of centres.

DoCoMo says it plans to introduce the service to the Osaka, Kyoto and Nagoya areas by December, and to the rest of Japan by spring 2002.

Of the three models of 3G mobile to be offered, one is a folding phone equipped with a camera for live, two-way video conferencing.