Japan KDDI
Since its inception in April, KDDI’s 3G service has attracted 829,000 subscribers and is gaining 10,000 new users each day.

The CDMA2000 1x service covers 43 municipalities in Japan, and KDDI plans to extend coverage to 90 percent of the population, and thus expects to add several million more subscribers by the end of the year.

Speaking at the recent 3G World Congress in Hong Kong, Hideo Okinaka, general manager of the strategic technology and planning department, said when the company upgraded its second generation network, CDMAOne to CDMA2000 1x, subscribers didn’t need to switch networks in order to access the services. They only had to upgrade to a 3G handset.

Mr. Okinaka attributes KDDI’s success to its choice of technology: CDMA2000 1x versus DoCoMo’s choice of Wideband CDMA, which builds on the GSM standard.

NTTDoCoMo
In the first eight months after DoCoMo launched its 3G service, FOMA, only 112,300 subscribers have signed on.

Undeterred by its domestic results, DoCoMo continues to move beyond the borders of Japan.

Recently, the mobile carrier introduced a new service plan for the use of its WORLD WALKER international roaming service exclusively in the United States.

WORLD WALKER service provides PDC subscribers with overseas rental handsets and forward calls from their own mobile phone numbers to their location abroad.

Currently DoCoMo offers WORLD WALKER service plans in both the U.S. and Canada, but the new plan, the carrier says, is less expensive as the service area is limited to the U.S.

Will DoCoMo be forced to slow down?
As DoCoMo continues to run from one foreign market to another, it may be forced to slow down in the presence of CDMA2000 1x’s growing worldwide following — operators and users alike. According to the CDMA Development Group, there are 10 million CDMA2000 users, accounting for more than 98 percent of the total number of 3G users.

There are now 15 operators in the Americas, Asia and Europe offering 3G services based on the CDMA2000 standard, with several others planning to do so in the near future, according to the CDMA Development Group.