i-mode in France?

Bouygues Telecom, the third-largest cell phone provider in France, has brought out a whole line of mobile phones which can provide content through its i-mode service, a 3G service developed initially (I think) by NTT telecommunications in Japan.

It allows me to browse websites on the tiny screen on my phone (which I have no interest in), but more importantly, allows me to send unlimited messages (even with photo attachments) at no extra cost. That's right -- absolutely free. No monthly fee even for the i-mode services (odd, since in Japan, NTT users pay a 300 yen fee surcharge); purchase of a phone grants you use of the service automatically. How bizarre!

Now that's odd, since generally sending mail from a phone generates some kind of charge for sending the mail as data packets. When I was using a cell phone in Japan, it used to cost me about 3 yen per mail. (Not a big deal, since I had 1200 yen of use-it-or-lose-it phone credits each month which I could deduct the cost of the mails from.) And when sending a photo it cost me even more: perhaps 15 to 20 yen.

So this free, e-mail illimites! really has me surprised.

Granted the keyboard is hard to type (oddly enough SMS messages have intuitive type but mails are one character at a time) with, but still ....

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Sample costs for phone service
Cost of mail using i-mode service: 0
Cost of SMS: 0,10 EUR (15 cents)
Cost of local phone call: 0,50 EUR (65 cents)