"Wot, no handsets?" DoCoMo warns of i-mode delay

Japanese mobile giant DoCoMo has warned that the failure of handset manufacturers to deliver GPRS phones on time will delay the roll-out of its European i-mode service.

The company planned to launch the mobile internet services with European partner KPN Mobile in March 2002 but it today admitted that the go-live date might be pushed back to June that year, according to a report in the Financial Times.

Although the packet switched network will be in place on time, handset manufacturers are unlikely to have phones capable of running mobile internet services ready.

NTT DoCoMo invested $3.2bn for a 16 per cent stake in KPN to get a foothold in the European market.

i-mode is a packet-based service for mobile phones which was originally touted as a competitor to WAP.

The service has enjoyed phenomenal success in Japan where it has more than 20 million users. It uses a uses a simplified version of HTML, Compact Wireless Markup Language (CWML) and offers colour video streaming with certain handsets.