NTT DoCoMo will launch a high-speed data communications service next week to allow mobile phones to download music and video data 10 times faster than at present.
Vodafone K.K. will follow suit in October and KDDI in December.
These Japanese mobile phone service providers are thus intensifying the race to obtain more customers, given the introduction in October of a portable number system allowing people to easily change providers while keeping the same phone numbers.
NTT DoCoMo said it will soon put on sale mobile handsets available for the high-speed data communications services that will start in central Tokyo on August 31.
By March 2008, the service may cover 90% of Japan's population, the firm said.