Dick Tracy moves to the Akihabara; DSL in Japan? Finding polar bears is easier...
Hi Jim,
Just to add to the international flavor here:
nytimes.com
[[Access is free, but registration required]]
I was floored to read here about how many DSL customers there aren't in Japan. (Here's a statistic for your file, Mike...) The country is not emulating So. Korea, a'tall. :))
<snip>
"But while Internet access through DSL is booming in the United States, Kobayashi's business is barely sputtering. There are fewer than 1,000 DSL customers in Japan, split between (Tokyo Metallic)and one lone competitor."
<end snip>
1,000!! Yikes, Batman! But fear not, there is a way for this thing called to Internet to reach the masses:
<snip>
For all the landline forces working against him, though, the biggest challenge to (Tokyo Metallic's) vision of wiring Japan (with DSL) has nothing to do with wires at all. Just the opposite, in fact. The Japanese are heading onto the Internet in droves -- by wireless means.
Currently, according to InfoCom Research, there are between 20 million and 27 million Internet users in Japan, or approximately one of every five people in the nation. Of that number, nearly half -- some 10 million -- are connecting to the Internet wirelessly. Of these wireless customers, 7.5 million are using a service called i-mode, offered by NTT DoCoMo, NTT's wireless division. For nearly two of three i-mode users, this wireless link is their only method of access to the Internet.
<end snip>
Here's why I'm a fan of cHTML (Compact HTML, a W3C standard, BTW) and not of WAP:
Japanese designers seem to have understood the user interface issues in a way that American designers have not, (Andy) Seybold said. "In Japan you can get to the train schedule with two clicks," he said. "When I try to find a plane flight on a U.S. cell phone, I have to go through seven menu levels before I can even enter the flight number."
Good article, well worth the read, IMHO.
Best, Ray |
