NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan's largest cellular phone company, plans to launch fourth-generation cellular phone services as early as 2006, aiming to make the system the world standard, the Yomiuri newspaper said, citing unnamed industry sources.

The 4G cellular phones will let users watch high-resolution movies and television programs, the paper said, adding that their maximum data transmission speed of more than 20 megabits per second will be 2,000 times faster than existing mobile phones and 10 times faster than the high-speed mobile phone services, or the so-called third-generation phone service, that DoCoMo plans to introduce in May.

The new-generation phone services were initially expected to start around 2010, but DoCoMo is moving up the schedule in an effort to set the de facto international standards for 4G service, the report said.

DoCoMo's 3G service, based on W-CDMA, or wideband code division multiple access, will initially offer the contents now available on i-mode, DoCoMo's two-year-old mobile Internet service, DoCoMo executive director Takeshi Natsuno said Thursday.

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