For the past several weeks, WWJ has been emailing J-Phone to set up an interview for our video newsmagazine. We finally settled on a date, and they asked us to submit our outline questions. J-Phone PR’s Matthew Nicholson responded to some of these earlier this week, and herewith we present a summary of his comments, wherein J-Phone reveals (almost all) about brand image, “plastic” roaming, and handling spam mail.
There’s a tremendous amount of initial wireless LAN network activity going on in Japan right now, but it’s still too early to say how WLAN will affect 3G. One thing is certain however: licensed-spectrum carriers are looking closely at WLAN to determine whether the technology will disrupt their carefully knit 3G network, wireless Internet, and data revenue plans. We speak with an industry insider on a recent WLAN hotspot trial conducted by a major mobile telco. But large carriers and others thinking about launching hotspot networks shouldn’t worry about finding content. First, solve the billing, roaming, and security problems — then content providers will beat a path to your door… just as happened with, oh…, for example, i-mode.
The drop in ARPU could be related to the fact that both DoCoMo and KDDI now have camera-equipped keitais on the market (although DoCoMo’s isn’t Java-enabled). Are we seeing the end of the camera-phone bubble? If so, there’s little else on the horizon to serve as the next market booster — except, of course, 3G speed-optimized services (and KDDI’s got the better network right now).
We think that the market heavyweight, NTT DoCoMo, gets a better payback by spreading Java far and wide (at a low marginal cost), while eschewing pricey gadgets and add-ons (or making the consumer pay for same when desired; we note that DoCoMo’s SH251i is selling for 5,000 yen more than J-Phone’s high-end Sharp Sha-mail handset).
We interview Roy Tseng, a Tokyo resident, Web developer, and long-time keitai enthusiast about the good, the bad, and the cool on Japanese cell phones.
Find out how J-Phone’s camera phones can be used in Tokyo bars to boost one’s social life.. sort of…
