China Netcom (CN) is seeking to cooperate with Japanese PHS mobile service provider Willcom to explore the low budget telephone service in Asia.

    Media reports say that a large number of Japanese mobile phone users will come to China to watch the Olympic Games, so Willcom and China Netcom will jointly launch mobile phone roaming services to provide more convenience to the users before next year's events in Beijing. In addition, Willcom will sign a consulting agreement with China Netcom to send engineers to China when necessary to provide technical support for the two parties' cooperation.

    Willcom is a low-cost wireless telephone service provider in Japan that mainly provides Little Smart PHS service for users. As a result of this cooperation, China Netcom may consider launching Little Smart service linked to the internet.

    At present, China Netcom has about 30 million Little Smart phone users.