It’s Official: Tokyo will host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games! Clearly it will be an interesting road ahead over the next 2,510 days and, of course, that “Discover Tomorrow” campaign tagline resonates with our longtime efforts in Japan as well. While it’s a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon here in the western suburbs, with local matsuri taiko drums and yokobue flutes in the air, I just wanted to mark this historic day with a few quick thoughts…

DoCoMo is always an interesting player to watch, and not just by comparison within our domestic market. Recently they made a clear ‘Mid-Term Vision’ statement shifting focus towards a so-called ‘Lifestyle Services’ company. Fair guess at first-blush on this for most folks overseas would be somewhere between ‘sure, nice PR speak’ and ‘good luck with that’ based on experience with their own local telcos. However, for those who have paid attention, again not just in Japan, the increasing action in OTT (as noted *importantly* below) and the 4th Wave concept are well upon us here.