International MMS for Japan

Japan's Vodafone K.K. announced that from March 18 it will offer Global Mail, a new service that enables customers to exchange MMS such as Sha-mail and Movie Sha-mail with overseas subscribers who have compatible handsets on participating networks.

With Global Mail, Vodafone live! customers in Japan can send multimedia messages like Sha-mail overseas by directly entering phone numbers (the [1656] Global Mail prefix + country code + other party's phone number). The service is scheduled to begin with participating networks in Spain (Vodafone Spain) and Hong Kong (Hong Kong CSL). Vodafone K.K. also plans to expand the number of compatible overseas networks in the future.

MMS has enjoyed rapid expansion among mobile operators around the world and many expect penetration levels to surpass those of SMS. MMS is spreading not only among the more than 100 countries that use GSM networks; it is also gaining popularity among CDMA networks which are commonplace North America and South Korea. Vodafone K.K. is able to now offer Global Mail since it was the first operator in Japan to achieve MMS interoperability. In addition, with Global Mail, people can send or receive an international MMS even while they are roaming outside their own country."

Posted to the site on 12th March 2004