Cellphone giant NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Monday it has agreed to inject 6.92 billion yen in additional capital and grant a license for its i-mode Internet service technology to KG Telecommunications Co., a Taiwan-based cellphone operator.
DoCoMo's i-mode service, which offers cellphone-based e-mail and Internet browsing services, boasts 24.57 million subscribers in Japan.
Under the agreement, KG Telecommunications, which is 20 percent owned by DoCoMo, will begin operating an i-mode-style service in Taiwan from the middle of 2002. The service will be based on DoCoMo's license, technologies and consulting.
According to the agreement, if other investors decline to buy the third-party allotment of stocks, the DoCoMo group, the company's second-largest shareholder, will increase its stake to 21.43 percent by buying additional shares, DoCoMo said.
Separately, NTT DoCoMo also announced Monday that it will not charge users for up to 400 data packets a month -- the equivalent of about 100 e-mails of 100 characters each -- to reduce the burden of many i-mode users suffering from the avalanche of junk e-mail known as "spam."
Starting Aug. 1, DoCoMo will also allow users to change their cellphone e-mail addresses free of charge in a further effort to reduce the incidence of spamming.
The measures are expected to reduce DoCoMo's revenues by 27 billion yen for fiscal 2001, the company said.
Around 100,000 cellphone users inquired in June about measures to block spam, most of which is sent by dating agencies, according to DoCoMo.
DoCoMo is considering taking legal action against companies who spam its users, the company said.