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DoCoMo (meaning "anywhere" in Japanese) is a NTT subsidiary and Japan's biggest mobile service provider, with over 31 million subscribers as of June, 2000. In February, 2000 NTT DoCoMo launched its i-mode service. With over 7 million subscribers, it has overtaken traditional Japanese Internet service providers to become Japan's biggest Internet access platform. DoCoMo's i-mode is the only network in the world that now allows subscribers continuous access to the Internet via mobile telephone. The service lets users send and receive e-mail, exchange photographs, do online shopping and banking, download personalized ringing melodies for their phones, and navigate among more than 7,000 specially formatted Web sites. The current i-mode data transmission speed is just 9.6Kbps, but in spring 2001 NTT DoCoMo will introduce its next-generation mobile system, based on wideband CDMA (W-CDMA), that can support speeds of 384Kbps or faster, making mobile multimedia possible.
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