Different from the two operators, KDDI and its joint venture partners, it prefers to commercialize technologies of Broadband Wireless Access (BWA)-based mobile WiMAX and services Personal Handy-phone System (PHS) advanced generation. Each was released in 2009, or a year earlier than the planned launch of LTE by DoCoMo and Softbank.
Latest ROA Group research report that the mobile markets in Japan will grow 95.4% from the current or increased to 121 million subscribers until 2011. Intense competition between NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, and Softbank, also makes the operators were preparing for business expansion outside Japan.