With its 60 per cent dominance in the Japanese wireless market, NTT DoCoMo is now looking to make its mark in the US with the 1x1 inch screen that is the Japanese version of surfing the Net.

NTT DoCoMo has purchased a 16 per cent stake in AT&T Corp's mobile phone unit for $9.8 billion. It has also laid claim to the $100 million Japanese unit of America Online Inc for the development of services linking PCs and mobile phones for the international market. But how successful DoCoMo will be in the US in the near future is unclear.

According to Mr Chandan Seernani, COO of the Atlanta-based Hotpalm.com, a wireless application service provider with AT&T's name recognition, DoCoMo has the opportunity to score an immediate bang with its i-mode services, especially since as digital technology it is fairly easy to roll out.

Not surprisingly, Mr Seernani is excited about the prospect of mobile wireless finally becoming a reality. "The applications will be here when i-mode get here," said Mr Seernani. His company provides mobile applications for financial services, mobile auctions and real estate.

But Mr Seernani admits there are limitations to the mobile market. Whereas only a third of the Japanese homes have computers, half of the population has cell phones. In the U.S. more than half of U.S. homes are equipped with PCs. Dale Gonzalez, vice president of wireless development for Atlanta-based Air2Web, said, "In the short-term this will serve to drive attention to wireless data and be positive in the market." However, he said, it could take two years or more before rollout is possible because AT&T is also intending to implement GSM (global standard of mobile communication) and GPRS (general packet radio service) and running i-mode on top of it rather than running i-mode over the wireless network as DoCoMo uses. "It will be a while before end users see an impact."

Mr Nick Desai, founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based Zkey.com, a mobile commerce applications and services developer and integrator, said part of the reason the i-mode service has been so big in Japan is because it is the hip thing to do among young people and because cell phones are more socially acceptable in Japan than they are in the US.

Mr Seernani said in the US the Internet-phone should be viewed as an extension of the PC. "The wireless Web is an extension of your Web connections at home," said Mr Seernani. "By no means can it compare with what we have at home, not at least until the screen sizes get bigger." Mr Desai, however, strongly disagrees with the notion that the cell phone is an appendage of the PC. His Los Angeles-based company, Zkey.com, is making the mobile Internet a unique and stand along tool. For instance, Zkey makes it possible for a consumer to make a wireless purchase using a cell phone.

"Completely different protocol and communication needs govern the mobile Internet," said Mr Desai. Most current mobile applications don't meet the mobile customer's needs and consequently, we haven't seen people running out to trade in their cell phones for ones that are Internet-equipped, Mr Desai said.

IANS