(keitai-l) i-mode Subscriber authentication process & other questions

From: Jim Elliott <jelliott_at_eire.co.jp>
Date: 01/04/01
Message-ID: <F1F85647EBC7D211A7F200104B982CAA01CBF3@MAIL01>
Hi all,

	Just subscribed to the mailing list and have spent most of today
browsing through the archives.  It makes for a very entertaining and
informative read.  Looking forward to more mail as people come back from
their holidays.  (Anyone else lie around their apartment like a slug for the
last five days?)

	I was hoping I could get some help understanding exactly how
subscriber i-mode web sites authenticate users to only allow content to
those who have subscribed to that service.  If a company creates a
subscriber i-mode site and NTT Docomo handles the billing, does NTT also
handle the user authentication before the request is even passed on to the
service's web site?  Does any user authentication need to take place at the
service's site, or is it all handled within the i-mode realm?

	If it is, what other restrictions would need to be set up on the
services site to disallow access to non-i-mode users?  It sounds like you
could refuse requests that don't originate from the IP addresses of the
i-mode gateway machines, but previous posts point out that this can become a
problem if the gateway IP addresses change or new addresses are added.  What
are the alternatives?

	Another couple of related questions -- generally speaking, how
difficult is it nowadays to get a site added to the main i-mode menu
listings?  Is it still true that the process basically consists of: "Impress
Natsuno, head of gateway business development, NTT DoCoMo"?  The guidelines
posted on NTT's page and also on the Mobile Media Japan page require local
Japanese-speaking user support services for Premium site with Japanese
content.  Is this just for handling communications and requests with Docomo
itself, or do they require customer support at the end-user level as well?
And does this support have to be 24-7?

	Thanks for any help.

	
Jim Elliott			jelliott@eire.co.jp
Eire Systems, KK		http://www.eire.co.jp
phone:  03-5484-7935		fax:  03-5484-7934


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Received on Thu Jan 4 09:38:35 2001