The company provides a wide variety of mobile multimedia services including i-mode which provides e-mail and internet access to over 50 million subscribers, and FOMA, launched in 2001 as the world's first 3G mobile service based on W-CDMA. While most mobile operators rely on equipment suppliers for the development and supply of new communication equipment, NTT docomo continues the NTT tradition of very extensive research and development efforts. NTT docomo is the creator of W-CDMA technology as well as mobile i-mode service.