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The unofficial independent imode FAQ
1. General questions
1.1 What is imode?
imode is NTT DoCoMo's mobile internet access system. "imode" is also a trademark and/or service
mark owned by NTT DoCoMo. The "i" in "imode" stands for information, internet, etc. (according
to one of i-Modes inventors, Ms Matsunaga. i-Mode is also a whole multi-billion Dollar eco-system, and its part
of Japans social and economic infrastructure. About 30% of Japans population use i-mode about 10 times or more
often per day, sending about 10 email per person per day, booking train tickets, checking the weather or
doing other daily routines via i-mode. Most businesses and individuals
in Japan are affected in one way or another by i-mode. i-mode also forced the competitors to introduce similar
mobile internet systems: KDDI/AU introduced EZweb, and J-Phone introduced Jsky, which was acquired by Vodafone,
which renamed Jsky to Vodafone Live! Vodafone Live! (then Jsky) was developed a few months after i-mode as a competitive
reaction to i-mode.
Return to imode-FAQ main page
1.2 What does a typical i-mode screen look like?
The following image shows i-mode screen images on a FOMA/3G SH900i handset (TFT screen, on sale in Japan since Spring 2004). Note that there
around 100 or more different DoCoMo handsets (counting color variations) and
many more for competing mobile internet systems in Japan.
The following image
demonstrates the user perspective of i-mode on a 3G/FOMA SH900i handset:
Ms Mari Matsunaga.
Fortune Magazine recently selected her as the most powerful woman in business, DoCoMo Board member Enoki and
Takeshi Natsuno.
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1.4 How many users does imode have?
As of Summer 2004, there are about 42 million imode subscribers in Japan,
and about 4 million i-mode subscribers outside Japan, therefore in total
about 46 million i-mode subscribers. While the number of
i-mode subscribers in Japan is close to saturation, we believe that the
number of i-mode subscribers outside Japan will grow substantially.
According to DoCoMo's data, the large majority of subscribers use email and
browse webpages many times every day.
Updated subscriber numbers are here.
Since there are over 70 million mobile users in Japan, imode and competing mobile internet systems have around 70 million users in
Japan. imode started in Europe (Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, Greece and Italy) in April 2002 and expanded to Taiwan and Australia during 2004.
Return to imode-FAQ main page
1.5 Who are imode's users - are these mainly young people?
Since over 40 million people, i.e. 1/3 of all Japanese people are imode users, they represent a broad cross-section of Japan's society, imode users include young people, middle aged and old people. There are slightly more male imode users than female users.
Return to imode-FAQ main page
1.6 Who is NTT DoCoMo?
NTT DoCoMo is a subsidiary of Japan's incumbent telephone operator NTT. The majority of NTT-DoCoMo's shares is
owned by NTT, and the majority of NTT's shares is owned by the Japanese government.
NTT-DoCoMo's shares are separately listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Osaka Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange (DCM) and NTT-DoCoMo's market value (capitalization)
makes it one of the world's most valued companies.
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1.7 Can I invest in NTT DoCoMo, buy NTT DoCoMo's shares?
NTT DoCoMo is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (DCM), Tokyo Stock Exchange and on the Osaka Stock Exchange.
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1.8 How does i-mode work?
Technically imode is an overlay over NTT-DoCoMo's ordinary mobile voice system. While the voice system is
"circuit-switched" (i.e. you need to dial-up), imode is "packet-switched".
This means that imode is in principle "always on", provided you are in an area where the
imode signal can reach you. When you select an imode item on the handset menue, the data are usually
immediately downloaded. There is no delay for dialling to set up the connection. However, there is a delay
for the data to reach you. This delay is similar to the delay on your PC based internet connection after
you click on a link, or after you type in an URL and press the "return" or "enter" button.
Of course there are further delays, if the information you download is too big, or if the network is overloaded.
Data download rates are 9.6 kbps and for some recent handsets 28.8 kbps for mova (DoCoMos 2G services).
imode is also available at much higher data transmission rates (at the moment typically 200 kbps, nominally 64 kbps upload
and 384 kbps download) on DoCoMo's "3G" FOMA network. For the future, 10 Mbps data rates are in preparation.
Return to imode-FAQ main page
1.9 What do users do on imode?
Users send email, look at the weather forecast, look at sports result, load ringing
melodies into their handsets, play games, do online banking, online stock trading,
purchase air tickets and train tickets, download cartoons and images, download music, look for restaurants and look for
new friends. Increasingly, corporations also use imode for company internal work, such as supply chain management.
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1.10 Are there imode emulators?
Yes there are imode emulators available on the internet. However, there are many
handsets in circulation which differ quite a lot. Most have color screens, some people still have old phones with small B/W screens
and all are Japanese language. So at the moment you need to be able to read Japanese
in order to read most imode content or to test imode pages. We do not recommend to use emulators, except in the initial
stages of development. For initial work, sometimes a normal webbrowser is good enough, except that a webbrowser normally
does not display the "emoji" (image-characters), which are an important and intensively used part of i-mode.
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1.11 Are there images and movies on imode?
There are gif and jpeg images, animated gif images and movies on i-mode. DoCoMo's i-Motion service provides
movie-clips on FOMA.
All handsets today have color screens and can display full color images, screens today have typically 65,546 or more colors, and
a typical screen size is 2.4 inch diagonally, and 240 x 320 pixels).
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1.12 How are Web pages encoded for imode?
Imode uses cHTML (compact HTML, sometimes also called iHTML), which is in part a subset of ordinary HTML.
However, in addition to
HTML tags, there are some special imode-only tags (for example a tag to set up a link, which when pressed
dials up to a telephone number, or another imode-only tag, informing search machines that a particular web page
is an imode page).
In addition, there are also special DoCoMo characters (image characters = "emoji"), which are symbols for joy, kisses,
love, sadness, hot spring baths, telephone, Shinkansen train, encircled numbers etc. There is quite a large number
of these special non-standardized characters, and DoCoMo adds new image characters from time to time.
Return to imode-FAQ main page
1.13 Is there a maximum size for one imode page?
Initially an imode page needed to by smaller than 5 kbytes, but this limit is gradually
increased with increasing network capacity, especially on 3G/FOMA.
Return to imode-FAQ main page
1.14 What about i-mode's packet transmission?
i-mode data are transmitted between DoCoMo's i-mode gateway and the handsets using packet transmission, depending
on the users handset either on DoCoMos 2G packet data network (DoPa) or on 3G/FOMA.
User fees are assessed according to the number of data packets transmitted and not for connection
time. Since data transmission is via a packet connection, there is no dial-up. While connection is
not instantenous, the connection time is typically only a few seconds until the first data appear.
One data packed contains 128 byte. On FOMA/3G flat data rates also exist, where the monthly data
charge is independent of usage.
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1.15 Can I look at imode webpages with my ordinary Netscape or Internet-Explorer browser?
Of course, since cHTML is an extended subset of HTML you can use your Netscape or IE browser to look
at imode pages. Try it out and look at some of our imode pages here:
http://www.eurotechnology.com/i/
or http://www.eu-japan.com/i/. However: (a) at the moment
almost all imode users are Japanese and therefore almost all imode content is in Japanese language. Therefore you
will need a Japanese enabled browser, (b) you will not be able to see imode-only tags (such as the
links which dial a telephone connection directly from the imode handset in Japan, (c) you will not be able to
see the many special DoCoMo-imode symbols. They will usually be replaced by a question mark.
So looking at an imode page with an ordinary PC based browser will give you an idea, but will not exactly reproduce what
imode users see on their handsets.
Return to imode-FAQ main page
1.16 What is the difference between imode and WAP?
Comparing imode and WAP is not straight forward. In some sense, imode and WAP based services are in competition
in Japan, and possibly world wide in the future. Both imode and WAP are complex systems, and it is really only possible
to compare present implementations of imode and WAP, as well as their business models, the pricing, marketing etc.
There are several important differences in the way imode and WAP based services are presently implemented, marketed and
priced. As an example, imode uses cHTML which is a subset of HTML and is relatively easier to learn for website developers than
WAP's markup language "wml". Another difference is, that at present in Japan imode is implemented with a packet switched system,
which is in principle "always on" while WAP systems in Europe are at present circuit-switched, i.e. dial-up.
Another difference is, that at present an imode user is charged for the amount of information downloaded plus
various premium service charges (if used), while WAP services are at present charge by the connection time.
Packet switching or circuit switching is a technical difference of the telecommunication system on which the services
are based, it has nothing to do in principle with the imode and WAP standards itself. In principle, imode and WAP
encoded webpages can be delivered over packet and circuit switched systems.
Return to imode-FAQ main page
1.17 Why is imode so successful?
There is not one single reason. It's to a large extent the fact, that NTT-DoCoMo made it easy for
developers to develop imode websites, that PC's in Japanese homes are not so wide spread as in the
USA and Europe, so that Japanese people don't
use PCs for internet access as much as in the US or Europe and several other reasons. Here is
a list of possible reasons:
Relatively low street price
to consumers for imode enabled handsets at point of purchase = low entrance threshold
High mobile phone penetration (60 million
mobile subscribers).
Japanese people love gadgets.
Relatively low PC penetration at
home.
imode uses packet switched system:
"always on" (if imode signal reaches handset etc), charges according to information accessed not usage
time, relatively low fees.
Efficient micro-billing system via
the mobile phone bill. Microbilling system makes it easy for subscribers to pay for value added, premium
sites, and attractive for site owners to sell information to users.
Fashion and efficient marketing.
Email is the "killer ap" like
in the initial years of internet growth.
Uses cHTML, which makes it easy not only for
developers but also for ordinary consumers to develop content. Explosive growth of content.
AOL-type menu list of partner sites,
gives users access to a list of selected content on partner sites which are included in the micro-billing system
and can sell content and services.
1.18 What is the band width for downloading data to the imode handset?
The maximum speed for i-mode download is 28.8 kbit/sec for top range models, and
9.6 kbit/sec for standard handset models for 2G i-mode services and on the order of
200 kbit/sec for FOMA (3G) services. 9.6 kbit/sec is approx. 6 times slower than
a 64 kbit/sec ISDN connection, but is sufficient for simple imode data. Of course
this speed makes it impossible to download live movies through imode. imode on FOMA (3G) is
much quicker: 384 kbit/sec download (typically 200 kbit/sec) and 64 kbit/sec upload in best conditions and
therefore allows video-telephony.
1.19 I will come to Japan for a one-week business trip next week. Can I
rent an imode handset for a week from a DoCoMo shop?
It has been traditionally quite difficult for short time visitors to
obtain mobile phone handsets in Japan, except for outdated and low performance
prepaid models. Recently the carriers all have opened rental stores at
Narita Airport where you can rent the most recent model for your short term
stay in Japan. If you do not need i-mode, your best choice maybe a prepaid model.
Return to imode-FAQ main page
1.20 I will come to Japan for a one-week business trip next week. I would like to take
an imode handset back to Europe/USA to show to my friends/business partners/boss/investors.
Where can I buy an imode handset?
You cannot purchase an imode handset without a DoCoMo telephone subscription (see Question 1.19 regarding
DoCoMo subscriptions).
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1.21 What does the "i" in "i"-mode mean?
In the broader sense it means as much as the "k" in Kodak.
There is no single meaning to the "i". In the Japanese language
there are literally 100s of words pronounced "i", one of
them is "love", and that's actually used in some of
DoCoMo's campaigns.
Our advice: don't spend too much time thinking about what the
"i" means.
It might be more useful to see the "i" not as a letter, but as
a graphical element. English words are often used as graphical
elements in Japan - that's why you have these T-shirts and
advertisements with absolutely crazy content.
You can also read what the inventors of imode write in their books about the
choice of name for imode, and which decision chain they went through to arrive
at naming DoCoMo's mobile internet services "imode".
One of the initiators of imode writes that the "i" stands for information or internet.
Return to imode-FAQ main page
1.22 Is it "imode" or "i-mode"?
DoCoMo's US trademark application is for "i-mode".
In Japan, "i-mode" is written in many different ways. Sometimes it's written with
roman characters, sometimes with katakana, sometimes with a combination of roman characters
and Japanese katakana, and sometime a decorative yellow i-mode "i" is used.
DoCoMo's website uses mostly the "i-mode" spelling.
Checking out what english speaking people actually use for spelling i-mode: GOOGLE
gives 482,000 hits (32%) for "imode" and 1,020,000 hits (68%) for "i-mode".
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