Nov 7th - DoCoMo's Next-Gen LTE Service To Compete On Price

-NTT DoCoMo Inc. plans to offer competitive pricing for the high-speed cellular phone service it is rolling out Dec. 24, The Nikkei learned Sunday.

Many industry insiders speculated that monthly charges for the service, which will employ the Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless technology, will come to around 10,000 yen. But the leading Japanese cell phone carrier has decided to set the effective monthly fee at 6,510 yen, just 9% higher than what it charges for its existing service.

That amount is expected to cover up to 5 gigabytes of data transmissions, which is sufficient for listening to 1,250 4-minute songs or watching normal-quality online videos for 23 hours. DoCoMo believes that the 5GB threshold will be enough for 99% of its customers. For the small number of heavy users, each additional 2,625 yen will buy them an extra 2GB of data volume.

DoCoMo's LTE service coverage will be limited to major cities until April 2012. During this initial period, customers signing up for two-year contracts will receive an even better deal of 4,935 yen per month.

The LTE service is expected to offer data transmission speeds that are 5-10 times faster than DoCoMo's existing service, or comparable to speeds delivered by fixed-line broadband services.

Major cellular phone carriers around the world are expected to begin offering LTE services in the coming years.

In Japan, Softbank Mobile Corp. and KDDI Corp. are working toward launching their LTE services in 2012 or later.

In Europe, LTE services are already being offered in Stockholm and some areas of Germany, but their charges amount to more than 7,000 yen per month.