With the implementation and adoption of 3G technologies slowly coming to fruition, the Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo and Hewlett-Packard Company have joined forces to move on to the fourth generation. The two companies recently have agreed to jointly study multimedia delivery and network applications over fourth-generation (4G) wireless broadband networks.

Under the alliance, DoCoMo and HP will combine their expertise, W-CDMA wireless broadband and i-mode services and infrastructure technologies, respectively, to deliver a 4G-multimedia architecture, named MOTO-Media.

The companies expect that MOTO-Media will enable high-performance streaming of multimedia content to mobile users based on agent technology, optimizing network resources and scalable media coding methods.

In addition, this joint research venture will explore new mobile services, such as m-commerce over 4G technology

Even though 3G mobile phones will promise users faster data transmission, CD-quality sound, and voice services, which will be launched by DoCoMo this spring, the 4G phones are expected to have the capability to pinpoint the exact location of the user, via GPS technology.

According to Keiji Tachikawa, chief executive office of NTT DoCoMo, HP Labs has the capabilities to explore a new 4G-application platform for DoCoMo future multimedia services, envisioned in MAGIC 2010.

The DoCoMo and HP research study of basic technology will run until 2003.