Telecom Informer

    

by The Prophet

Hello, and greetings from the Central Office!

Winter in Beijing is bitterly cold and very dry (the Gobi Desert is nearby), so it's nice to leave town every once in awhile.  I'm writing to you from a sprawling telecommunications complex near the Tokyo suburb of Kawaguchi.  Japan was once the world's premier high-tech center but is now a shrinking and aging giant, having recently lost its status as the world's second largest economy to China.  Even still, the scale of operations here is amazing compared to the U.S. With Japan's wealthy and tech-savvy population, Japan remains one of the most wired places on the planet.

My first visit to Japan was in 1997, and I was amazed then at how high-tech everything was.  While we were still retiring the last of our analog switches, NTT had long been all-digital and was even deploying high-tech ISDN payphones throughout the country.  The train and subway systems were computerized throughout (everything from fare collection to signaling) and ran precisely on time.  Akihabara was the go-to place for the hottest technologies in the world.  And Japan used a strange and wonderful standard called PDC for its mobile phone network.  It was fully digital, unique in the world, afforded incredible battery life to handsets, and supported advanced data features like web browsing, picture mail, and QR codes long before these became popular elsewhere.

Vending machines were everywhere, too.  You could buy cigarettes, alcohol, condoms and even an alleged schoolgirl's pair of soiled used panties out of a vending machine - along with more conventional items like hot canned milk tea.  Some restaurants sold pre-printed order tickets out of a vending machine, which you could deliver directly to the kitchen.

All of these things still exist today (including the ISDN payphones, most of which haven't seen data usage since 1999 but are still meticulously maintained - and, yes, vending machine panties).  Japan is still an exciting and dynamic place to visit, and remains one of the most important telecommunications hubs in Asia.  Still, visiting there feels like a visit to an aging friend's house.  You know that friend who was a big gadget freak five years ago, and bought a ton of really cutting edge stuff, but he still has all the same stuff and has never updated it because it all works just fine, so why change anything even though he's falling behind the curve?  Well, Japan is like that friend.  Everything is still high-tech and it all still works, but it's aging and yellowing and is often much more complicated than it needs to be.

Japanese mobile phones used to blow the world away with their innovation.  It was the first country in the world with a working mobile payments system (and even today, leads the world in mobile payments).  When we were still using monochrome candy bar style phones, Japanese consumers had flip phones with cameras and color displays.  Sure, your phone couldn't roam in Japan, but Japanese phones were so exciting and futuristic that you understood your phone just wasn't worthy of such a magical place.

These days, Japanese mobile phones feel like a step backwards, even though they remain advanced overall.  The most popular type of mobile phone in Japan is an aging design: a basic flip camera phone.  Sure, the display is gorgeous and the camera is 12.1 megapixels, and the phone has a 700 MHz processor and can run highly complicated GPS-based mobile applications (such as a popular dating service that alerts you when you're in the proximity of another subscriber who matches your profile and interests).  Still, touch-screen phones that have taken the world by storm (you see them everywhere in China) just haven't caught on in Japan, except for a popular Android-based half-tablet.  This is fairly surprising given the popularity of mobile mapping services in Japan.

Android and iPhone are the most popular smartphone platforms, but smartphones seem less popular in Japan than in other places.  One reason, of all things, is the lack of native Japanese emoticon support.  These are incredibly popular and the lack of support is actually a serious problem.  Also, Japanese feature phones are so feature-rich and are capable of running so many applications that smartphones aren't as necessary.  Japanese feature phones also make it very easy to send email, which is very popular.  Input in the Japanese language can also be a clunky problem with smartphones, most of which aren't designed exclusively for the Japanese market.  Local Japanese feature phone brands (Sanyo, Anycall, Sharp, etc.) are the most popular.  Samsung and HTC have made some smartphone headway, although very limited, and (of course) the iPhone is popular. Most surprisingly, although Nokia is a huge player in China and much of Asia, their phones are hardly even available in Japan.

There are still some unique characteristics to Japanese mobile phone usage, owing both to the unusual rate plans and to Japanese cultural norms.  SMS hasn't caught on because most carrier rate plans allow Japanese consumers free data usage, including email.  However, SMS is charged per message, making it less attractive.  Japanese people have also become accustomed to sending longer messages, and the 140 character limitation is insufficient for most users.  As is the case in many places throughout the world, callers to mobile phones are grossly overcharged but mobile phone subscribers receive their calls for free.  This on its own isn't enough to keep people in most countries from making phone calls anyway, but Japan is a hyper-courteous society.  It's only socially acceptable to use data services (such as email and Web browsing) on the train.  In fact, there are signs posted on trains reminding people not to talk on their mobile phones.

You can subscribe to prepaid and postpaid mobile phone service.  However, signing up is complicated because (in an increasingly popular bureaucratic snarl around the world) the police require linking a Japanese ID card or residence permit with every new phone.  Foreign passports aren't legally sufficient to subscribe, so you'll either need to be resident in Japan with the appropriate permit, or will need the help of a Japanese friend to get started.  Rate plans are generally higher for prepaid service; for example, SoftBank's popular service charges the equivalent of nearly $1 per minute for local phone calls.  Prepaid phones also cost more, starting at around $50.  Visitors tend to either rent phones at the airport or roam in Japan using a phone from their home market, both more expensive but less troublesome alternatives.

Post-paid service provides a subsidized handset (often sold for only one yen), but requires a credit check and two year contract, similar to the way post-paid plans work in the U.S.  As in the U.S., handsets are generally locked to the mobile carrier that issued them, and (for a variety of reasons) are almost impossible to use on other networks even if they're unlocked.  You need to be a permanent resident in Japan with a Japanese bank account in order to subscribe, and carriers generally require payment via direct debit from your account.

There are three major mobile carriers in Japan.  The oldest and most established carrier is NTT Docomo, which runs a WCDMA 3G network.  The same technology is used by SoftBank, Japan's smallest carrier, whose small, shaky network has been substantially expanded and improved in recent years.  SoftBank is the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in Japan.  KDDI runs a network called "au," which uses the same CDMA 1xEV-DO standard as is popular in North America and South Korea.  Most WCDMA phones are backwards compatible with GSM and can be taken overseas, but CDMA phones generally are not.  To compensate, KDDI sells a number of multi-mode handsets which support CDMA, WCDMA, and GSM, in order to ease international roaming.

Roaming in Japan used to be impossible, but air interface standards and frequencies used are gradually becoming consistent with the rest of the world.  This means I'm now able to use my WCDMA-capable HTC Diamond to roam on NTT Docomo.  This is a basic unlocked GSM world phone, which supports GSM, EDGE, UMTS, and HSDPA on 850, 900, 1800, 1900, and 2100 MHz frequency bands.  However, even though it's technically possible, roaming is not advisable.  On my China Unicom SIM card, data roaming costs about $15 per megabyte and voice calls cost from 75 cents (and up) outbound to $1.50 inbound (oddly enough, receiving calls is more expensive than placing calls).

And with that, it's time to close out another quarter of "The Telecom Informer."  Stay safe this winter, and if your travels take you to Japan, don't forget your ISDN modem!

Shout outs to Bul-lets, Roots Tokyo, and Tokyo Hacker Space - thanks for the friendly hospitality!