New Japanese operator eAccess wants to quadruple its mobile phone services subscriber base over the next year as growth slows in its ADSL broadband business. Granted a new wireless licence in 2005, eAccess plans to eliminate monthly basic fees on new mobile phones from HTC and Toshiba and generate revenue from multimedia mobile data services. The phones, priced at 57,980 yen (US$540) and 67,980 yen (US$633), aim to help the company lift its subscribers by 1 million in the financial year ending March 2009 from a projected 300,000 users at the end of March this year.

By keeping phone charges low, eAccess hopes to earn revenues from file downloads and email and sign up more users to its premium data plan, whose monthly charges start at 4,980 yen. “During the first year, the majority of revenues will come from data services; maybe 60 to 70 percent,” Eric Gan, eAccess’s CFO, told Reuters. “We are looking at [average revenues per user of] 3,000 yen to 4,000 yen.” EAccess said it would provide unlimited free calls to other users of its mobile phone service for a monthly charge of 980 yen. The plan also lowers calls to fixed lines to 5 yen per 30 seconds, and 9 yen per 30 seconds for calls to mobile phones of other operators. People who opt out of the 980 yen plan will be charged 18 yen per 30 seconds of call time. The Reuters report adds that the move could further exacerbate a price war involving Japan’s biggest mobile carrier NTT DoCoMo, No.2 KDDI and No.3 Softbank in an already saturated market.