IP: A comment from Japan on Sony chief in broadband warning to US

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: IKEDA Nobuo <ikeda-nobuo@rieti.go.jp>
Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2002 03:18:33 +0900
To: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
Cc: ikeda-nobuo@rieti.go.jp
Subject: Re: IP: more on Sony chief in broadband warning to US

Tim Onosko wrote:

> Japan doesn't have one system either!  The exact criticism can be leveled at
> Japan, where FOMA (NTT DoCoMo's "3G" system) is stalled, is expensive, and
> has not been met with enthusiasm by its subscribers.  Upstarts such as
> J-Phone appeal to the younger market segment with cheap air time and gadgets
> like phones with built-in still cameras.  The Japanese wireless business is
> chaotic, but also vibrant because of this chaos.

Your description is confused. Japan has one standard, PDC. FOMA is the
3G, for which the US even can't have the frequency because of the fiasco
of 700-MHz auction. J-Phone's "Sha-mail" service you referred is only an
application over PDC. Japanese cell phone industry is in no way chaotic.

The rapid growth of broadband in Japan was triggered by Yahoo BB that
sold ADSL at 990 yen ($8) per month! Other carriers followed, but they
may end up with the disaster of CLECs in the US. However, different from
the RBOCs, NTT admitted the collocation of competitors more quickly
without lawsuits. Is it Japanese advantage?

Indeed Mr. Idei's strategy is ill-conceived. Looking at Korea and Taiwan,
it is clear that too much copyright protection such as DMCA is
preventing the broadband in the US. RIAA and Hollywood killed Napster
that could be the platform for broadband content distribution.

Mr. Idei says a lot of dumb things about the IT that he hardly understands.
Once he said that SONY would deploy IPv6 to every "information appliances",
which upset SONY's engineers, and turned out as a lie. Forget him.

--
Ikeda, Nobuo
Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI)
http://www.rieti.go.jp/en/index.html


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