********************************************************** Japan Internet Report No. 58 June 2001 ********************************************************** In this month's issue: - My first 3G experience - Interview with Hidehiro Inai - Now get hip to 5G! - Keitai and cable cars - Quote of the month ********************************************************** My first 3G experience Last week I had the chance to play around with a DoCoMo FOMA "visual phone" capable of full-motion videoconferencing. As many JIR readers know, DoCoMo recently released, via lottery, a few thousand 3G handsets on an trial basis in a move aimed at ironing out the kinks prior to starting full-fledged commercial service later this year. A reminder: FOMA stands for "Freedom of Mobile Access." The new FOMA telephone we have here is a blue clamshell design, substantially larger, heavier and uglier than a typical i-mode handset. This is somewhat disconcerting, since all users in today's Japan are used to sleek, featherweight, cigarette lighter-sized telephones that literally must be restrained with a tether to keep them from leaping out of the pocket every six minutes. A nice touch is the small digital clock window on the outside of the case. This lets you tell the time without having to open the handset. Like Sunbridge Head Guy Allen Miner, I find myself leaving my watch at home these days because I can always glance at my telephone. The camera on this phone is mounted on the rod that connects the two halves of the clamshell. It swivels 180 degrees so you can capture images in front of you while speaking into the handset. I can already foresee the social problems that will arise when millions of these things are in use in Japan. People will be "casually" holding them at waist level and below in crowded trains and on stairways... We didn't have immediate access to another colleague with a similarly equipped model, so we had to wait to do a videophone test. In the meantime, we turned the handset camera on ourselves and enjoyed examining very sharp, full-color, real-time, full-motion images of our tonsils. Now who says there aren't any good 3G applications? Later I had occasion to test the videophone capabilities of the FOMA handset with a partner, and I must say I was impressed. In a Shinjuku hotel room, I got a call from my boss in Kamiyacho, and he came in loud and clear, both on-screen (full-motion video) and via voice. You have to wear an earphone in order to hear the other party; looking head-on into the handset screen means you can't assume the ordinary telephone posture of pressing the speaker to your ear. The video transmission is at 64kbps, not at the 384kbps speed promised for the future by DoCoMo, so it's a bit jerky. But the screen resolution and color quality is excellent, and I had a hard time retrieving the handset from an enthusiastic visitor from overseas. What's more, the FOMA handset worked inside the hotel room, while my regular i-mode telephone didn't. Good times. Read on for impressions from Hidehiro, resident Ion Global Japan gadget nut and FOMA lottery winner. *********************************************************** Interview with Hidehiro - What's your overall impression of the FOMA service? I applied for and received two handsets, and I get the impression that the FOMA service is not quite there yet. Some of the more intricate operations are kind of hard to perform - I'll come back to this in a bit. You have to know someone else with a FOMA phone to use the videophone feature, so it's still not very practical, and on top of that, the service area is currently limited to the Tokyo metro area. But if you can find another FOMA phone, the videophone feature is really fun - like something from an old spy movie - and the sound quality is great. My boss said that I sound better over the FOMA phone than in person. I use the FOMA phone pretty much the same way I use my regular cellular phone: for making calls and sending e-mail. I haven't had a chance to try video downloads yet. - Any particular positive or negative points? The service has fantastic sound quality, and the handset can be used as a digital camera. Showing it off makes for a great conversation starter - I've never been so popular. On the flip side, the handset is too big, it's not PC-compatible, and you can't receive calls while surfing. The batteries run down too fast when you shoot video, and you can't attach video clips to e-mail. I was kind of annoyed to find that I can't adjust the screen contrast while watching video clips, and it's a pain to have to put on the headphones when using the videophone. Also, you can tell that the service is still in development; the connection frequently cuts out mid-call, basic services like call waiting sometimes aren't available, and hardly anyone has one - I don't even know any other users. - Tell us about the process of applying for and picking up the phone. I applied only once, online. When I went to receive the phone and attend the user's briefing session, I found that the DoCoMo representatives themselves weren't very familiar with the phones, and when the lottery winners started asking questions, they got pretty flustered. Some of the recipients were so unimpressed that they gave up their phones and went home. - Are there any clubs or activities designed to help FOMA users meet each other? No, there aren't any user groups yet. Right now (during the test launch period), DoCoMo is holding a few lectures and other events - maybe these will include something like that. - Has DoCoMo given you any special directions, warnings, or restrictions regarding the FOMA handsets? We're supposed to answer four questionnaires during the test period so DoCoMo can evaluate the service quality and content offerings, and there are also some seminars. We have to return our FOMA terminals and FOMA cards by September 30, when the test period ends. If the phone or accessories are damaged before that time, we have to cover the repair costs, and if we lose our phones, or they're damaged so badly that they can't be fixed, we have to pay DoCoMo the full replacement price. For me that would be 96,000 yen (U.S. $760) per handset! - What is the billing structure like? You haven't received a bill yet, have you? No, I haven't gotten a bill yet, but I know how the fee structure works. There's no basic monthly fee for the FOMA service, and like i-mode, packet transmission fees are based on data volume, rather than time spent online. Transmission fees for one packet (128 bytes) are set at 0.05 yen - pretty cheap compared to 0.3 yen per packet for i-mode users, but I would still have to pay over 1,500 yen to download a four megabyte MP3 using my FOMA phone. *********************************************************** Now get hip to 5G! In spite of the personal enthusiasm of those few consumers who were lucky enough to be allotted FOMA handsets during the trial period, the focus of Japan's Internet-enabled mobile telephone service market has already shifted away from high-speed third-generation services and toward the possibilities offered by Java. This change in focus is not simply because of the FOMA service delay and the almost complete lack of 3G-specific content and services. It's driven by the substantial installed base - over four million Java-enabled handsets in place - compared to only a few thousand FOMA handsets. Safe prediction: there will be seven million Java-enabled mobile phones in use in Japan by the end of the year. That's a brand new platform of sorts, because Java gives cellular telephones functionality much closer to that of PCs. So hey, forget about 3G - and get hip to Java and 5G! That's an expression that Frank Yu coined in the last Asia Internet Report - see details here. ********************************************************** Keitai and cable cars Come join us in San Francisco for a conference addressing Japan's unstoppable Internet-enabled cellular phone market (for the non-Japanese speakers in the house, "keitai" is shorthand for "keitai denwa," or "portable telephone"). Analysts - including yours truly - and industry players will examine Japan's Internet-enabled wireless services and the key factors contributing to their success. Plus, you'll get to see my collection of cool, full-motion video clips of Japanese telephones in action. Event name: Mobile Telecoms Japan Date: July 11-13 Location: Sheraton Fisherman's Wharf Hotel, San Francisco, CA For more information, or to register, please visit the conference Web site. ********************************************************** Quote of the month Former Intel Japan President Ikuo Nishioka on why the use of mobile telephones has exploded in Japan: "Because people are mobile." ********************************************************** Tim Clark Strategy Director, Japan tim@jir.net Please use the online forms to subscribe to or unsubscribe from JIR. Copyright 2002 by Ion Global All rights reserved Tel: +81 3 5777-3810 Fax: +81 3 5777-3814 Ion Global strategic e-business integration