Telecom carrier DDI Corp. said Friday it will merge seven of its eight regional cell-phone service providers on Nov. 1 to increase efficiency, naming the merged entity "au."

DDI, Japan's second-largest telecommunications company, will merge all its cell-phone affiliates except Okinawa Cellular Telephone Co. in Okinawa Prefecture.

The merger will comprise regional providers in Hokkaido, Tohoku, Hokuriku, Kansai, Chugoku, Shikoku and Kyushu regions.

The Kansai unit will be the surviving entity with the new company headquartered in Osaka. The remaining units will be disbanded. DDI will inject around 40 billion yen in au (pronounced a-oo) to clear its capital deficit.

DDI is also scheduled to merge in October with international telecom carrier KDD Corp. and mobile-phone operator IDO Corp.

After the three-way merger, the new DDI will swap shares with au and turn it into a wholly owned subsidiary by the end of March 2001, DDI President Yusai Okuyama told a news conference.

Okinawa Cellular Telephone will continue to offer services in the Okinawa area, while au will offer services in the other regions.

At the news conference, Okuyama also confirmed that the new DDI will enter local phone services, possibly from May 2001.

Location joint venture

NTT DoCoMo Inc., Mitsui & Co., NEC Corp. and three other firms said Friday that they have set up a joint venture to offer a service that uses devices such as the Global Positioning System and Personal Handy Phone System to determine a user's position.

The venture, named Location Agent Inc., is capitalized at 450 million yen, with 59 percent owned by NTT DoCoMo, 14 percent by Mitsui and 14 percent by NEC, the companies said.

The other three firms are NTT-ME Corp., which will control 10 percent, Seiko Epson Corp. with a 2 percent share and FGENEX Corp. with 1 percent.

One service will provide tourist information to users with a personal terminal linked to a GPS system, while another potential application will allow senile people who have wandered off from a hospital or home to be located, the firms said.

The new firm will also provide application services to other firms by allowing them to use the functions of their servers via networks.

Location agent Inc. is scheduled to be up and running in December.

Use for surplus bands

The Management and Coordination Agency called Friday for surplus frequency bands to be generated with the digitization of broadcasting and truck radio systems to be used to accommodate skyrocketing demand for mobile phones.

The agency recommended the action to the Posts and Telecommunication Ministry as it believes the current frequency band capacity will not be able to cope with the rapid growth in use of cellular and automobile phones in Japan.

Frequency band shortage is expected in Japan despite a changeover from analog to digital signals in a cellphone communication system planned to be completed by the end of March 2001. The digital format can use twice as many lines in a single frequency band as the analog format.

The number of cellular and automobile phones in Japan surged fivefold during the five years until the year to March 2000.