Defect found in FOMA cell phones

NTT DoCoMo Inc. will repair free of charge two of its FOMA mobile phone models on demand due to a software defect, company officials said Wednesday.

The officials said the defect concerns the calculation functions in the N2051 and P2102V models of the third-generation handset but added that basic functions like telephone calls and personal data control are not affected.

The N2051 was manufactured by NEC Corp. and launched in January, while Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. produced the P2102V, which hit the market in March.

According to NTT DoCoMo, NEC supplied Matsushita with the software believed to have caused the problem, which includes miscalculations in division involving numerals with eight successive zeros or more, such as 100 million and 1 billion.

Industry analysts said the N2051 and P2102V models are used by roughly half of FOMA's estimated 400,000 users.