NEC to rollout dual mode handsets early next year

date: November 26, 2001

NEC Corp , Japan's biggest mobile phone maker, expects to start supplying the world's first dual-mode WCDMA 3G mobile phones to European operators early next year, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

Hajime Sasaki, NEC's chairman, told the FT in an interview the dual-mode phone, which can be used to make calls on existing infrastructure as well as new high-speed 3G networks, was undergoing trials.

“I think we will be the first,” Sasaki said.

Dual-mode phones are critical to the success of 3G because they allow users to make calls in areas where there is no 3G infrastructure.

European operators have decided not to launch 3G services until such phones are available. NTT DoCoMo launched the world's first 3G service in Japan last month, but the single-mode 3G-only phones it uses do not work outside Tokyo.

The two models of handsets, the N2001 and the N2002 now in use on NTT DoCoMo’s FOMA network in Japan are single mode products that work only with the W-CDMA air-interface on the official IMT-2000 spectrum band near the 2 GHz range.

Sasaki said NEC, and its 3G research and development partner Matsushita , had come close to matching the research budget of Nokia , the world's leading mobile phone maker.

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