Mobile Networks Stressed by p0rn?

This saucy story has been making the rounds and we felt obliged to offer a balance observation, so here goes. It come as no surprise that, just like the PC world, adult is a major content category, certainly this is not a recent development. We have had mobile flat-rate data plans since 2006, do you really think it’s taken this long for the demand to spike? Note, DoCoMo just rolled out a new video download platform - BeeTV - this spring and is agressively advertising that despite supposedly being overwhelmed by demand for salaryman snacks.

So, maybe was it a slow news day or just plain click bait. We might suggest the timing is interesting when one considers the current tug-of-war over allocation of desirable new spectrum that will become available when analog switches over to digital. Everyone is after that space, specifically the broadcasters and telcos. At any rate, the article is ’short’ on real numbers, which would make for interesting ‘growth’ benchmarks so it’s fair to suggest the ‘hard’ facts of the story are, like many things in Japan, well-hidden behind the Shoji.