Greece met Japan in Bulgaria with the latest service introduced in the country by GLOBUL, called i-mode. In September, GLOBUL, Greece’s COSMOTE and NTT DoCoMo, the leading mobile operator in Japan, announced the launch of GLOBUL's i-mode, a result of the close co-operation among the three companies. The project flows from a successful track record, with 53 million i-mode users in 16 countries around the globe. COSMOTE launched the i-mode service in Greece in June 2004, and almost a year later the company introduced i-mode over 3G. GLOBUL is the first European operator to develop the platform infrastructure and launch i-mode in the record time of less than six months, while being one of the few to offer the service upon launch to all its customers, both contract and prepaid.

What is i-mode?
i-mode is a user-friendly service allowing customers to easily access at high speed an extensive variety of thematic content as well as applications, such as e-mail, at affordable prices. It is available on state-of-the-art, easy-to-use handsets, provided exclusively by GLOBUL. The service is also available to Globul’s outbound roaming customers, as the company is securing GPRS roaming agreements with European i-mode providers as well as with other mobile operators.

i-mode enables GLOBUL customers access to a colourful and fascinating world of information and entertainment offered through the i-mode sites, thanks to its open standard and iHTML language, which facilitates the transfer of existing internet content to a mobile phone, regardless of make or type of handset.

What do you need for i-mode?
To use i-mode, an i-mode enabled handset is required. GLOBUL launches the popular service offering three easy-to-use and innovative i-mode handsets that include high-end features, such as 256K colour screen with high picture resolution, MegaPixel camera, Macromedia Flash Technology, Video Ring Tones and Real Tones, enhanced and expanded user memory. More specifically, GLOBUL brings to its customers the Samsung S400i, the Motorola L6 i-mode® and the Motorola L7 SLVR i-mode® models and will continue to expand its range of advanced i-mode handsets in co-operation with the leading world manufacturers.

Opportunities
GLOBUL has signed agreements with leading content providers both in Bulgaria and internationally and introduces i-mode with 45 official Bulgarian and international i-mode sites. Content partners include CNN, EuroNews, Eurosport, Focus Agency, Club F1, Mtelecom, Terracom, Dir.bg, Web Media Group, Economedia, Jobs.bg, Datecs etc, as well as widely established interactive game developers, such as Zenops, well known for popular games such as SEGA and Zenops games.

GLOBUL plans to continuously enhance the number of its available i-mode sites in order to provide its customers with a wide range of content options. Apart from the official i-mode sites, GLOBUL customers can access a number of independent i-mode sites, given that the open i-mode architecture gives all interested parties the opportunity to create their own site and promote it through i-mode. Notably, there are a substantial number of independent i-mode sites worldwide. Through i-mode, GLOBUL customers can, among other benefits, find information about the latest news and the weather, play games, personalise their handsets by downloading ring tones and wallpapers, check their daily horoscope, choose a film at the nearest movie theatre as well as get updates on the latest financial and business headlines, or currency rates. In addition, they can send and receive e-mails of up to 4000 characters, attach pictures, sound or video clips and send them to an i-mode or MMS enabled handset, to a PC, or to any other e-mail address.

Advantages
I-mode combines high quality services with affordable prices. GLOBUL customers are charged for using i-mode and not for activating/subscribing to the service. More specifically, navigation in i-mode, including accessing the portal, the official and independent sites, e-mailing and downloading is 2.40 leva a MB. Customers only pay for the data volume received or sent and not for the time spent connected. The official i-mode site consists of both free and paid content with a monthly subscription fee ranging up to six leva. Independent sites have no monthly subscription and charges includes browsing based only on the data sent or received. GLOBUL provides i-mode users with 200KB of free GPRS traffic every month. After using up the 200KB, users will be charged at a flat rate of 2.40 leva a MB. All prices are VAT inclusive.