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Vodafone to Introduce Foreign Text-Compatible Message Service

Posted on: Wednesday, 8 March 2006, 12:00 CST

By Kyodo News International, Tokyo

Mar. 8--TOKYO -- Vodafone K.K., the Japanese arm of Britain's Vodafone Group Plc, said Wednesday it will add a new function on April 3 to its international text message service to let users receive messages in the form of the original foreign language text.

The new function, which will be available on third-generation handsets, will start out with a service that will handle both Japanese and Chinese in cooperation with China Mobile Communications Corp. and China Unicom Ltd.

Vodafone's international text service, which is called Global MMS and began in March 2004, currently allows users to exchange text messages directly with others who subscribe to the services of 34 foreign cellphone carriers in 23 countries and regions.

Japanese phone handsets are not compatible with foreign-language characters that differ from English one-byte characters. Such characters often turn into gobbledygook on screens of Japanese mobile phones.

With the new Vodafone service, the text of Japanese and other languages will be converted into image data, which will be transmitted in attached files.

Vodafone said the new service will be free except for telecom charges.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Kyodo News International, Tokyo

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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9434, VOD,

Source: Kyodo News International, Tokyo

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