Posts Tagged ‘Japan’

Back to the Future Station

Saturday, July 31st, 2010
Back to the Future Station

L - R: Carter, Neumann, Kii, Sato

On my recent business trip to Tokyo, I had the opportunity to have lunch with my good friend Hajime Kii and his family.  I know Kii-san from when he was a senior executive at NTT America and I was working at CITI at Columbia University.  Kii-san was kind enough to arrange a visit to NTT DOCOMO’s Future Station for me and WIK’s CEO Karl-Heinz Neumann while we were in town.  At its Future Station, DOCOMO presents a short film showcasing its high-concept vision of its product and service offerings for the near-term future.

I had mentioned to Kii-san that I had seen it in 2001 as part of a delegation from Columbia University including Eli Noam and Robert Pepper (now at Cisco Systems).  The 2001 version included a short film showed DOCOMO’s vision for wireless communications in the year 2010.  Eli and Pepper kept giggling and looking at me because the kid in the 2001 film was named “Ken”.  Now that it is 2010, I was clearly interested to compare the 2001 film to the 2010 version and to the products currently offered.

Well, aside from the fact that the kid in the film is now called Hiro, many of the ideas in the 2001 film have made their way into current products and prototypes.  After the film we got to tour their showroom.  Granted, the floating touch screens are still science fiction; however, products like ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems), augmented reality, multimedia handsets, mobile commerce, and location-aware services have made it into their cool new handsets.  My favorite handset comes with a detachable QWERTY keyboard and a projection monitor.  One can use any Bluetooth keyboard (unlike my complaint with the iPhone) and can use the detachable projector to make presentations (movie screen not included).  We also were able to play with a protype handset which does augmented reality, allowing you to see what it would be like to have a new car (you can change the style, color, etc.) in your driveway.  Dr. Neumann was able to use one of display handsets to buy a drink from a vending machine and buy a Big Mac from a McDonald’s mock-up.  Using your cell phone to pay for anything from train tickets to lunch to groceries is completely old hat in Japan.  DOCOMO also showed us two new handsets which have natural wood exteriors.

Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa

Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa

The other cool fact I learned from the 2010 film is that the yukio-e woodblock prints of the master Hokusai Katsushika captured the movement of water at 1/5000 of a second.  (By comparison, most digital SLR cameras are not faster than 1/1000 of a second.)

Insight: DOCOMO’s Future Station is very cool.  While visiting the Future Station, I was like a kid in a candy shop on Christmas morning.  Being there reminded me why I got into telecommunications in the first place – because tomorrow will always a brighter day with bigger (smaller), better, faster and Cooler Stuff.  I will have to go back in 2020.  I will give you an update then.

Network Neutrality and the Samurai

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

The ITU Association of Japan just published my September keynote on Network Neutrality in the Highlights section of its January 2010 ITU AJ Journal.  The article is password protected, but if you are a member of the Association, you can get it from the website. (The article is in Japanese).

One of the points I made in the keynote (which is not in the brief article), was an analogy of Network Neutrality issues to Edō Period Japan.  The sankin kōtai laws of the Tokugawa Shogunate imposed a rule of prioritization on the Tokaido and Nakaseido roads between Edō (now, Tokyo) and Kyoto, as well as on other “kaido” emanating from the capital.  Access to Japanese roads was prioritized by social status, with only the Samurai class having access to the center of the road as their procession called a daimyo gyoretsu passed.  Lower classes were required to clear the road kneel down and bow as the Samurai passed.  Punishment for failing to clear the road was possible decapitation.

The concept of prioritization is not new, but it is universal.  It expresses fundamental and competing notions of fairness versus economic efficiency.  We think it is unfair to give preferential treatment to certain customers (those who are willing to pay more or have higher social status).  At the same time, we also think it is economically inefficient to mandate a single (or limited set of) Internet access options for everyone, including those who are willing to pay more for premium services.  When the network (or Tokkaido Road) is congested, prioritization can make users better off.  Prioritization can be accomplished based on economic characteristics, arrival order, processing load, urgency, or even social status.

Insight: Since all messages on an IP-based network travel at the same speed (the speed of light), in discussions of Network Neutrality, it is never who gets to go faster, rather which packet, or which samurai, gets to go first.  Such prioritization must be done in a way which is socially permissible and economically desirable.  Given that the penalty for breaching a classes of service restrains in Edo Japan was capital, I think I would rather get a reset packet.

Cool Cube

Saturday, October 24th, 2009
C is for CUBE

C is for CUBE. The School has its own hand sign.

On my trip to Japan earlier this month, I was invited by my good friend Prof. Harumasa Sato to speak to his undergraduate students at the Konan University in Kobe.  Prof. Sato did not ask me to talk about spectrum, Net Neutrality, interconnection, or some other issue in communications.  Rather, he asked me to speak to his students about my life and international career experience.  Since this is the inaugural year for the school, so I was delighted to address the students.

Prof. Sato is the Dean of the new business school and spent the past three years setting it up. And, what can I say for his efforts?  It’s totally fucking cool.  The school is referred to as “CUBE”, aptly named for the building cube-like shape.  Prof. Sato roams the halls speaking to his students. (When I was in business school, and the students saw the Dean coming, they went the other way).  Inside, the building is a fantastic mix of high-tech classrooms, work spaces, meeting spaces, and offices. The main lounge is an English-only “O-Zone” so that the students can practice their business English.  The TV in the lounge is not a TV, it’s a Mac streaming YouTube.  Everything is wireless, including room lighting controls, projection monitors, and the contactless RFID security passes, which are in cell phones. Students use their cell phones not only as security cards to gain entrance to certain areas of the building, but to buy drinks from the vending machines.

Insight:  Kids today, I tell you.  They don’t know how cool they’ve got it.  My time at CUBE got me thinking about my own undergraduate experience.  As a college student, I spent Spring and Summer semesters junior year studying in Japan.  I cannot imagine how different my education would have been had we had these technologies and the wide-spread adoption of the Internet.