Mobile

Smartphones' share now is 50% in Japan, but still Galapagos

Smartphone shipment among total mobile handset in Japan during the first half of this fiscal year (Apr-Sep) reaches 49.5%, according to MM Soken.

WirelessWire News 11/30

Sharp keeps the top position (19.4%) in brand share, followed by Fujitsu (16.7%), SonyEricsson (12.8%), Panasonic (10.3%), Apple (9.3%), NEC Casio (8.8%), Kyocera (7.8%), and others.

Compared to the same period last year;

winners:  Fujitsu (last year: 14.9%), SonyEricsson (7.4%), Apple (7.9%)

losers:  Sharp (22.7%), Panasonic (13.6%), NEC Casio (12.1%), Kyocera (11.4%)

These Japanese vendors make their own versions of smartphones matched to the Japanese carriers' specifications.  The old-type "very high in function but only used in Japan" feature phones are widely known as "gala-kei" (Galapagos Keitai/mobile handset), and now these "very high in function but only used in Japan" smartphones are currently called "gala-sma" (Galapagos smartphone).  Despite the popularity of smartphones (iPhone/Android), Japan is still Galapagos in this department.

Michi

Another flash of thought from CTIA, about Sprint

I guess many people think Sprint is likely to be acquired or evaporate, and many people also think AT&T acquiring Tmobile is a bad thing for competition - in the same line of thought.

I don't think so. 

If AT&T and Tmobile remain independent, only Verizon will be the sure winner.  Neither AT&T nor Tmobile will be able to challenge VZ in any significant manner.

In 3G world, 2xGSM and 2xCDMA foursome was a good balance.  Now they will all move to LTE, reducing one will not hurt too much.  But just 2 (VZ and ATT) is a bit too lonely for regulators - 3 is a good number.  It is DEFINITELY better for both VZ and ATT to keep Sprint alive, in terms of competition policy.

For them, weak but independent Sprint - neiter alive nor dead - is an ideal 3rd one.  If Sprint faces a serious situation to go under in the future, they probably will help behind the scenes.

Well, I may have been around in carrier world too long - getting too synical, I guess...

A few flash of thought about RIM in CTIA San Diego

RIM could be found nowhere.  There was a HUGE blackberry outage problem all over the world, and nobody talked about it.  Of course, they were not in keynote, had no booth, nobody uttered "Blackberry" in any sessions.  Wow, that is such a change from even a year ago...

I think RIM grew out of their manageable size.  The current outage is probably a sign of lowering moral within the company.  When they were at the top, I think they had to stretch so thin - with their size, they had to continually support OS updates, support many carriers globally, deal with government globally, support enterprise customers with their own sales force, keep up with the young people's trend in consumer market and deal with app developers...

I guess that was too  much.

Japan telecom recovery - DoCoMo’s new disaster readiness plans

I am at Wireless Japan 2011 in Tokyo right now.  On the first day, CEOs of all wireless carriers are speaking at Keynote, and found that DoCoMo’s Mr. Takashi Yamada’s talk about their disaster readiness plans quite interesting.

As I have been reporting in this blog, DoCoMo has been quickly recovering their damaged service and as of now, service is recovered at most of the affected areas.  One of the remedies that they took was to build small number of backup large zone base stations on high ground, instead of rebuilding each individual small zone base stations.  In Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant area, they built a special long-range base station at the outer edge of the 30km radius area, facing towards the Nuke Plant for the people working on the recovery effort.

In addition to the direct recovery effort, DoCoMo is introducing 20-billion yen scale disaster readiness plans across the nation.  Some are regular things such as increasing the satellite phone inventory, and my favorites are those two.

1)      Large zone backup

DoCoMo is building the backup base stations on top of the DoCoMo/NTT switching offices, where robust power back up is available.  It gets lit up to cover 7km radius when a disaster strikes and regular base stations are down in the area.  They are building average of 2 of these backup stations per prefecture (5 for Tokyo and 4 for Osaka). 

2)      Voice transfer system

Right after the earthquake this time, they had to limit circuit switch voice traffic by 80%, but data could get by with only 30% limit.  However, some people still have difficulties in using e-mails, so they are planning a backup voice file system to be implemented this fiscal year.  When a caller makes a call but hits the limitation, the circuit automatically diverted to the voice mail system, and the voice message gets turned into a voice file and gets delivered to the destination phone number in digital voice.

App for autism "Voice4u" won Japan's "Android Application Award"

Android App for communication of autistic people, "Voice4u", just won the top prize at "A3 (Android Application Award)", organized by Nikkei BP and sponsored by major Japanese carriers and international device vendors.

Voice4u is created by my friends Yumi Kubo and Sei Higuchi, and I have been supporting them from early on.  Yumi is mother of an autistic boy and she developed this app, as portable, affordable and "cool" tool for kids with communication problems.

Voice4u English site

ustream of the award presentation

And by the way, my son is working as a volunteer to help this app.  If you know anyone with autism who has problem communicating, please let her/him know about this app!

 

Michi

Japan Telecom Recovery - Another quake, another mobile service stoppage

News reports say another strong quake hit Northern Japan, just about the same area as the big one one month ago.

NHK video footage of Sendai shows a big flash of light on the horizon and the city lights went off.  My Twitter TL says it is likely that an electricity substation had short circuit or something.  Other tweets say that Onagawa Nuke Power Plant, another working power plant in the area, has taken additional safety measures and it is OK.

Again, according to my TL, mobile phones in Sendai area are not working perfectly now, because of the carriers' restrictions rather than the physical damage or power problem of the base stations.  As long as the power recovers, service is likely to be restored.  Currently, data connection is relatively better.

 

Michi

Japan Telecom Recovery - DoCoMo published service recovery map, 3/22

NTT DoCoMo has published a detailed map that shows their service status of Tohoku area.  As their usual way, it is TOO detailed and a bit hard to understand because of it, but basically, grey shows the no service area, and blue is the temporary service area with mobile cell sites. DoCoMo service recovery map, 3/22

According to the chart below, current unfunctional cell site number is down to approximately 600-700 in Iwate, Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures.

DoCoMo recovery chart

Source:  DoCoMo press release 3/22

Michi

Japan Telecom Recovery - KDDI recovery status, 3/21

As Light Reading says KDDI is not saying anything (in English, probably), here is my translation from their Japanese press release as of 3/21. <au mobile>

No service restrictions are in place

There are non-working cell sites in the following prefectures: Aomori, Iwate, Akita, Miyagi, Fukushima, Yamagata, Niigata, Ibaragi, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa

As of 3/18, non-working cell sites number is down to 620.  (Source:  @KDDIPR Twitter)

Mobile cell sites are deployed in the following locations:

  • Ofunato City Hall (Ofunato, Iwate)
  • Otsuchi High School (Otsuchi, Iwate)
  • Yamada High School (Yamada, Iwate)
  • Sun Village Takada (Rikuzen-Takada, Iwate)
  • Sizugawa Junior High School (Minami-Sanriku, Miyagi)
  • Onagawa Sports Park (Kesennuma, Miyagi)
  • In addition to those, 20 mobile power charger vehicle are deployed in various locations.

<Fixed Lines>

No service restrictions are in place.

Some services are not available in some parts of the affacted area due to physical damage to the circuits:

  • Fixed and Internet Service such as au one net, IP−VPN, WVS, Ether−VPN
  • au Hikari, Hikari Direct in parts of Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures
  • Metal Plus in parts of Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures

<International>

Some international circuits are down, but it is probably not because of the Tohoku earthquake, but is  due to a separate earthquake in Taiwan.

  • International Dedicated Lines to Australia and the U.S.
  • International IP-VPN to Australia and the U.S.
  • International value-added service:  Alasca, Bermuda, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, the U.S., US Virgin Islands, Venezuela

<Emergency deployment>

Following phones are in place to support emergency workers

au mobile phones:  727

Satellite phones (Iridium and Inmarsat) :  38

Others:  Portable power generators, cell phone cahrgers, power source cable tap etc.

Source:  KDDI Press Release, 3/21

Michi

Japan Telecom Recovery - Light Reading reports about NTT, 3/18

A week after the earthquake and tsunami struck northeast Japan, NTT Group (NYSE: NTT) is still battling to restore domestic fixed and mobile lines to its customers in the affected areas.

via www.lightreading.com

NTT seems to have informed to foreign press about their damage and recovery. Softbank is lightly mentioned, and KDDI apparently has not informed them in English. Please do so quickly, KDDI!!

Michi