- Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access
FOMA (IPA:/'foʊmə/), officially short for Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access, is the brand name for the
3G services being offered by Japanese mobile phone operatorNTT DoCoMo .FOMA was the world's first
W-CDMA 3G service when launched in2001 . FOMA is compatible with standardUMTS , both via the radio link as well as viaUSIM card exchange, and hence provides several alternative options for globalroaming : either with or without change of handset. Since mobile services in Japan are generally more advanced than in most other countries, e.g. FeliCa-i-mode Wallet Phones,i-mode mobile data services etc, to obtain full benefit of FOMA services local Japanese handsets are used.fact|date=July 2008Initially - as the first full-scale 3G service in the world [ [http://www.picsel.com/index.php/mediacentre/casestudy/151/ NTT Docomo Case Study] ,
Picsel ] - FOMA handsets were of experimental character targeting early adopters, and were big, had poor battery life and the network covered the center of Japan's largest towns only. For the first 1-2 years, FOMA was essentially an experimental service for early adopters - mainly communication industry professionals.Around March 2004, FOMA achieved the breakthrough into mass sales, and sales soared. As of
September 29 2007 , FOMA has over 40 million subscribers. [cite web|url=http://www.nttdocomo.com/pr/2007/001367.html|title=3G FOMA Subscribers Exceed 40 Million|accessdate=2007-10-03|date=October 2 2007 |publisher=NTT DoCoMo ]Spectrum Allocation - FOMA Plus Area
FOMA Plus Area uses 800MHz Band. This allows better coverage in rural areas where there are greater distances between subscribers & base stations.
In the FOMA Plus Area, users can get the all same service as users in the regular FOMA Area. FOMA and FOMA Plus Area have no differences in rates.Mainly mova uses NTTDocomo's 800 MHz band. But this is different from the PDC system. FOMA and mova can't coexist in the same frequency and except N2701,the same cellphone can't be used in both areas.
At first, there were very few FOMA PLUS Areas because there were still many people using mova. But recently the number of mova users has decreased.Recent FOMA Plus Areas that overlap mova cut into the bandwidth of existing FOMA base stations. This has created a two-tier structure (overlay) at FOMA base stationS. According to NTT DoCoMo Tokai in 2006 & 2007 mountain areas and some residential areas in the dual structure, and since 2008, including from urban areas throughout the two-tier structure will be launched.
FOMA HIGH-SPEED
Currently NTT DoCoMo provides a high-speed data communication services, namely FOMA HIGH-SPEED, using
HSDPA technology (7.2Mbit/s downlink, 384kbit/s uplink). [ [http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/service/function/high_speed/index.html NTT Docomo official website] ]See also
*
Camera phone
*NTT DoCoMo
*Osaifu Keitai
*MOAP References
External links
* [http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/product/foma/ FOMA devices website]
* [http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/service/imode/index.html i-mode service website]
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