Avoiding what could have triggered further trade friction with the United States, the DDI Corp. group companies and IDO Corp. on Friday jointly submitted an application to launch in 2002 next-generation cellular phone services based on technologies developed by a U.S.-based firm.
On the day of the application deadline, the nine firms filed with the Posts and Telecommunications Ministry for the last of three electric wave band allotments to be used for the multimedia cellular phone service.
The DDI companies and IDO, along with overseas call operator KDD Corp., plan to merge into one firm named KDDI in the fall. They had been considering which technologies they should adopt for the next-generation system, which has high-speed data transmission capability.