NTT DoCoMo has been aggressively pushing towards a 2010 LTE launch. The Japanese giant claims it will have its 4G network in place in 2010, even its competitors wait and take a more cautious approach.
In an interview with the Financial Times, NTT DoCoMo President Ryuji Yamada discussed some of the major strategies for the launch:
- Mobile video is central. NTT wants to drive LTE uptake by offering high-quality movie downloads to mobile devices. It has even adopted “Movie DoCoMo” as a slogan. If you want proof of NTTs dedication to video, look no further than the $45 million investment last week.
- Unlimited data plans. In order to get customers using LTE to the utmost, NTT will be encouraging unlimited mobile data plans.
- Widescale launch. NTTs 3G launch in 2001 was hampered because it was only available in big cities at first. NTT will be overlaying the LTE network over existing 3G infrastructure, so everyone can access it at once.
What we think?
In the same story, President Yamada defended NTTs foreign expansion. At GoMo we’ve been following TaTa DoCoMo, an Indian mobile operator that NTT owns a 26% stake in. The main purpose of TaTa DoCoMo is to build a 3G network all across India. Given NTTs plan to overlay LTE over 3G, I think we can assume that India can look forward to LTE services from Japan within the next few years.
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