French next to get i-Mode

Turning Japanese...

Bouygues Telecom is expected to make a E619m (£380m) bid for a third generation licence today, a move that will enable it to offer i-Mode services to the French market for the first time. The French government was initially hoping to raise E4.95bn (£3.04bn) for the remaining 3G licences but has since had to dramatically reduce the asking price after a host of companies, including Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica, declined to bid. i-mode is a proprietary mobile data service owned by Japan's NTT DoCoMo and Bouygues hopes to tie up a deal with the Japanese telcoms firm in the coming weeks. Like WAP technology i-mode allows users to access information and play games via their mobile phones. Unlike WAP, however, i-mode has proved highly popular with consumers. DoCoMo has signed up over 30 million subscribers since its introduction in 1999.