(keitai-l) i-Mode Usage in Japan and NTTDoCoMo Statistics

Hello list members,

I would like to tap the knowledge and local know-how of folks in Japan.  Can
someone confirm the following:

1/ NTTDoCoMo advertises > 40m subscribers to i-Mode in Japan

Is this based on subscription or usage? I am curious whether people are
using i-Mode in these numbers.  As I don't know enough about the Japanese
i-Mode market, I am curious what happens when a consumer purchases the
phone.  Do they buy the phone at the carrier with i-Mode automatically
enabled? (subscribed?).  If so, then this number isn't an accurate
reflection of popularity and we must then rely on usage.  I think with
i-Mode in other markets (perhaps Italy), you must go through a separate
subscription to enable i-Mode.  Can anyone confirm?

2/ Do Japanese consumers use i-Mode for java games or content? If so, how
successful have consumers been in downloading over the local network and
playing games that require consistent network access? Does the network
quality vary between i-Mode deployments in other markets or does NTTDoCoMo
approve based on a Japanese benchmark for network reliability? I also
understand i-Mode just deployed in Greece -- June 2004.

I'd like to know more about the 'real world' usage of i-Mode and the success
of its content providers -- those that fall strictly under the 'content
camp' (pure C-cHTML) and those that fall under the 'entertainment camp'
(java games).


I look forward to your response.

Regards,

Alexander.