I have a hard time believing this survey, especially considering the rate at which FOMA has expanded. More information inside.

Not much more to say, other than that as of July 19th, DoCoMo's 3G FOMA service has five million subscribers.

FOMA began operation in October of 2001, and brought in o­ne million subscribers in the first two years. In the four months following, they reached 2 million subscribers, and in the 2 months after that, they have gotten 1 million more subscribers.

If DoCoMo continues at their current pace, it looks as though it will be simple for them to achieve the 10,600,000 contract goal set during May of last year.

Inspired by:
http://k-tai.impress.co.jp/cda/article/news_toppage/19758.html

Press Release:
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/new/contents/04/whatnew0720a.html

384kbps got you down? Well, DoCoMo has a new phone coming out soon that supports 802.11b, so you can connect hella faster.
But it's not as good as it sounds, because you apparently can't use wireless LANs just anywhere. You need to be at your office.

What was o­nce done in two chips should be able to be done in o­ne.
The dual modes are W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS.

If you're interested in FeliCa, you'll eat this right up.
That's right, I'm going to translate this entire interview K-Tai Watch did with Fumio Takizawa, the Section Manager of FeliCa Networks' Public Relations Department.
This is perhaps the longest article I've ever translated, once I finish.

Chalk another "device your cellular phone will likely replace."
At least that's what Nano Media wants.

This 3rd and likely final part in the FeliCa series outlines a few of the services that will launch with the release of the FeliCa support phones as reported yesterday.

NTT DoCoMo has announced release dates for the three new 900i series FOMA phones. For specific information about the units, please refer to the corresponding TechJapan article from June 1st.

And the dates are:

-F900iT, June 19th
-P900iV, June 19th
-N900iS, June 25th

DoCoMo knows better than anyone, you can't just go and introduce a new technology (FeliCa) nationwide (well, Japanwide) without releasing new units that support it, and actually expect adoption by the public.

SO to coincide with the "national FeliCa implementation campaign," and officially be 10 years ahead of the USA (well, technologically, let's not talk about socially), DoCoMo will introduce four new handsets supporting FeliCa.

They are:
-Fujitsu's F900iC, with fingerprint security
-Panasonic's P506iC, with a dual-axis rotating main display
-Sharp's SH506iC, also with a dual-axis rotating main display
-Sony Ericcson's SO506iC, with a sliding display and removable faceplate

For those of you that don't know, FeliCa is a contactless IC system that intended to be integrated with cellular phones, allowing users to make small purchases by simply waving their FeliCa-containing phone over a receiver. An example would be a vending machine; just put your phone by the surface, make your selection, and enjoy a tasty beverage.

This article is coming from an English NTT DoCoMo press release (yeah, that's what I said), because I still have plenty more to write today.