Mobile Communications Japan
Japan's Pioneers
Visit a major Japanese city like Tokyo or Osaka and it's easy to understand why the country has advanced to become one of the world's pioneers in mobile communications. Swept along by the hectic pace of life in a major metropolis, people in cities like these are spending less and less time at home. For many, the cell phone is a permanent companiona playmate, a means of communication, and even something of a tranquilizer all in one. Everywhere you look, there are young people busy downloading pictures or games, new ring tones or karaoke songs from colorful cell phones. They're also using the phones to pay at soda machines, talk in chat rooms or surf through any one of almost 45,000 Web sites available from i-mode, a service operated by NTT DoCoMo.
But it's not only young people who are taking advantage of such opportunities. "We launched i-mode three years ago and have since added thousands of new providers," says Hiroshi Nakamura, head of DoCoMo Europe. "Today, we see just as many people over 40 as under 30 using the service, and we now have more than 30 million subscribers." Older Japanese people tend to use cell phones and e-mail functions as well as other helpful services. For instance, they access public transport timetables, stock market news and weather reports, purchase tickets, conduct bank transactions and download street maps for unfamiliar parts of town. Inspired by this success story, German mobile communications company E-Plus went ahead in March 2002 with the launch of an analogous i-mode service featuring a range of entertainment features. Meanwhile, back in Japan, the third generation of mobile radio was introduced in October 2001, when NTT DoCoMo launched FOMA (freedom of mobile multimedia access) in major metropolitan areas. FOMA is a variation on W-CDMA (see article Data Transfer Rates: UMTS and More) that enables data transfer rates of between 64 and 384 Kbps. "All of this means our customers can talk on the phone at the same time they're surfing at high speed through various online sites or sending e-mails with attachments," says Nakamura. "What's more, they can download music in top quality, learn English while on the move, watch short movie clips and evenfor example, when shoppingtake pictures and transmit them home." Because the FOMA terminals are still very expensive and somewhat limited in scope, subscriber numbers have yet to take off. However, since the Japanese are very visually oriented, most experts are convinced that cell phones complete with camera and video functions are destined to make a market breakthrough here in the near future.
Enno Kapitza/Sebastian Moser
