Mobile Videoconferencing to Be ‘Ubiquitous’

Keisuke-san says his 2-1/2-year-old daughter is already interested in communicating visually on both mobile phone and on the set-top video system that he has in his SOHO office. “She sometimes says to me,’Dad, let’s do videoconferencing.’ I do not think that she understands the literal meaning of the words but she is kind of getting used to stand or sit in front of a monitor that shows a person talking on the other end of a live video call. She looks [like she’s] just enjoying it.”

Keisuke Hashimoto sent me a mail a couple weeks back to say “I enjoy your Wireless Watch Japan especially in terms of how a non-Japanese journalist observes and reports trends in the mobile phone market in Japan.” (Thanks, Keisuke-san!)

He explained that he’s a market analyst focusing on audio, video, and data collaboration technology. He is now looking at the potential of “video mobility” provided by systems such as NTT DoCoMo’s FOMA 3G phones and how it may affect the conferencing market.

He said, “I personally think that video mobility will become a catalyst for change in the conferencing market and [it] changes the way we communicate dramatically satisfying human needs of anytime and anywhere. ‘Anytime and anywhere’ is an important element for wide deployment of conferencing technology.”

This is not the first comment I’ve heard from 3G videophone users in Japan pointing to the intriguing potential that this technology provides, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

However much mobile videoconferencing may still be in the trial phase (due to cost and low penetration), the technology does indeed work and it remains to be seen how both business people and every-day folks will apply it.

Despite the reduced-travel-cost promises of corporate videoconferencing via fixed-line, I don’t think this market ever really exploded - primarily because you and your fellow conferees all had to plonk yourselves down in front of a central studio-style conference terminal at the same time. With mobile, you all still have to be online at the same time, but you don’t have to be anywhere special.

Keisuke-san seems to think likewise, and adds that: “Conventional videoconferencing has been said [over] many years that it would ‘take off next year,’ but we have never seen that yet. I am an advocate hoping that mobile video will become eventually a catalyst for change and become a driver in facilitating and promoting wide usage of visual communications.”

His comments are fairly significant because he actually uses FOMA himself - a lot - both in private and work life, but he also thinks that mobile videoconferencing still has a couple of kinks to be worked out - not all of which relate to technology.

He says, “I sometimes use a mobile videophone on the road to make a video call to my wife at home, but it is still kind of embarrassing to hold a handset in my hand on the street and looking into a camera and say, ‘hello my dear!’ It is surely not a culture yet. And I also expect the quality of video to be improved. Also, per-minute call [fees] are unjustifiably expensive and I would like to see improvement in battery life, design of handsets, service coverage, etc.”

But it was his comments about using videoconferencing at home that most caught my eye - and that most point to how future 3G customers are already being groomed (DoCoMo marketing staff: Pay attention!).

Keisuke-san says his 2-1/2-year-old daughter is already interested in communicating visually on both mobile phone and on the set-top video system that he has in his SOHO office. “She sometimes says to me,’Dad, let’s do videoconferencing.’ I do not think that she understands the literal meaning of the words but she is kind of getting used to stand or sit in front of a monitor that shows a person talking on the other end of a live video call. She looks [like she’s] just enjoying it.”

Just like today’s teens can’t really imagine a world where there isn’t an Internet, I think mobile videoconferencing will become far more “natural” when today’s kids grow up, graduate from school, and start working - and start using videophones that they’ve used since childhood and all through school for work. “It may take time - I do not know how long - but mobile video together with conventional video will become ubiquitous,” says Keisuke-san. —

Related WWJ video story: A Guy and his DoCoMo 3G CellphoneTakaharu Mita is just a regular guy with a DoCoMo 3G videophone - but like many early-adopters, he’s got no one with whom to hold video calls. In March, he posted his number on his “FOMA Diary” Web site and invited the world to call - anytime. Well, the world responded, and Mita-san has got a lot to say about videophones, Big D, and how society’s gonna change…

– Daniel Scuka

Tags: 3G, Camera, DoCoMo, FOMA, video

Posted: 20 December 2002 | Filed: Mobile Users, Newsletter | Feedback | Print |