O2, Telstra pull plug on i-mode

Yeah, NTT DoCoMo's i-mode mobile data service does alright in Japan — in fact, we curse the heavens every day that we aren't there to enjoy it — but it has been met with considerably less success in the twelve other countries where it's offered in licensed form. O2 and Telstra are both phasing out their i-mode offerings — O2 in 2009, Telstra in December — with O2 saying that despite extremely high satisfaction among its i-mode users, a general lack of hardware available to support the service (isn't it just a deck of content on a 3G phone?) prevents it from moving forward. Of course, this doesn't spell the end of either carrier's mobile content or 3G efforts — far from it, in fact — with Telstra encouraging users to migrate to Next G.