re: 3G Applications - Video "Messaging"
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`The Killer Application Is That You Can Send Pictures'
Peter Landers
Wall Street Journal Europe
19/01/2001
TOKYO - Officially, Toshiro Iizuka's job is to design cellular phones for Panasonic. But the term hardly does justice to the goodies he pulls out of his briefcase. The bottom of one prototype phone slides out to reveal a nearly full-size keyboard. Another includes a video screen. A third features a miniature video camera that swings out from the back.
Whatever such gizmos are called, Japan could be seeing them soon. The nation is racing to roll out so-called third-generation, or 3G, cellular technology, which will allow much more data-intensive services to be sent to and from cell phones and other hand-held devices. And the move could have big implications for U.S. consumers since NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan's top mobile phone provider, has agreed to buy 16% of AT&T Wireless, the cellular arm of AT&T Corp. DoCoMo plans to start 3G service in Japan this May and vows to bring it to the U.S. within a few years through AT&T Wireless.
In Europe, 3G networks are expected to kickoff later this year and next. Licenses in the 3G spectrum have already been auctioned off in most markets and the operators who acquired them licenses are starting to put the necessary infrastructure in place.
Before 3-G reaches European consumers, however, operators first plan to launch global packet radio service, or gprs, also known as 2.5G, a telecom suystem that allows high-speed transfer of data packets and is expected to spawn a series of wireless data services.
But for 3g and gprs to get off the ground, devices are needed: Even in an advanced wireless market like Sweden, there are just two gprs handset models available and only 1,000 consumers have purchased such handsetss. Meanwhile, 3G handsets are not even on the horizon in Europe.
The 3G devices can send still pictures, video and music, along with providing better ways to tap into Web sites than today's wireless systems. That explains why designers are slapping cameras and keyboards on what used to be simple portable phones.
But even the experts have a hard time saying exactly what people will do with the technology. "The killer application is that you can send pictures. But how people use that depends on the user," says Mr. Iizuka, the chief designer at Matsushita Communication Industrial Co., the unit of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. that makes Panasonic phones.
DoCoMo has already shown that the mobile Internet can produce some surprising content. The company started its i-mode service in February 1999, offering e-mail transmission and limited Internet access to cell phones. Soon, quirky applications such as video fishing games and cartoon-character downloads appeared, helping i-mode gain an astounding 16 million users - one in eight Japanese - in less than two years.
Some of the envisioned 3G applications may be equally surprising to adult Americans. Mr. Iizuka, an amateur trumpeter who likes to jam with high-school students to keep up with youth culture, says his sources tell him 3G phones could become a furtive classroom hit. As it is, many Japanese high-school students already bring their i-mode phones into class. "I send e-mails if class is boring," says Kaori Miyazaki, a freshman in Tokyo.
Mr. Iizuka's idea is to add video to this subversive pastime, with students propping up the phone-camera behind a textbook. "They can't talk during class, but the picture will be live," he says with a mischievous smile.
Such examples have led some people abroad to conclude that the mobile Internet as pioneered by DoCoMo is mainly aimed at goofing-off teenagers - "arm candy," in the words of U.S. trade negotiator Richard Fisher.
In fact, though, i-mode is picking up many adult users who get hooked on the system's grown-up content. For example, one Web site that offers hotel reservations on i-mode phones says it records five million page views a month. DoCoMo says the average i-mode user is 28 years old.
Japanese media outlets have also moved into i-mode, creating a potential new business model for paid news sites - an attempt at which most American publishers have failed.
The mobile-phone sites of the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun have 195,000 subscribers paying $1.80 a month for a mix of news headlines and stories about the Yomiuri Giants baseball team. The business newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun has 120,000 mobile-phone subscribers paying $2.70 a month, and it says most of the revenue is profit because the content can easily be adapted from the paper's other sites. There's even a CNN i-mode site in Japanese.
For the coming wave of 3G services, cell-phone makers are designing models with adults in mind, not just teens. Digital cameras, for example, are already a must-have gadget for many new parents. But with existing technology, parents who take pictures of their kids while on an outing have to go back home and download the shots onto a computer before e-mailing them to Grandma. With a camera embedded in a mobile phone, the pictures can be sent instantly.
A DoCoMo competitor, Japan Telecom Co.'s J-Phone, has already started selling camera-phones made by Sharp Corp., although the picture quality in the debut models is poor, in part because of the relatively slow data-transmission speed of today's cellular network. One Tokyo building maintenance company is giving the phones to its repairmen so they can take pictures of problems such as water leaks and get an immediate diagnosis from head-quarters. "There are lots of commercial applications," says Sharp's mobile-phone chief, Yoichi Sakai, who adds that foreign carriers have inquired about selling the camera-phone.
Sharp also is pitching another 3G device, a hand-held computer known as Zaurus that has a wireless link and can play video clips such as movie previews. If Mr. Sakai has his way, people who find themselves, say, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street in New York will be able to call up trailers of movies playing in midtown Manhattan and buy tickets over their phones. When the movie is over, they could consult the phone again for a video directory of restaurants.
Neat as that sounds, the success of the 3G gadgets is hardly assured. For one thing, DoCoMo's i-mode service has been nagged by service interruptions. The 3G technology is even more complex - and users aren't likely to stand for jerky video pictures or slow data download.
What's more, the rollout of 3G technology in the U.S. may not be speedy. AT&T Wireless and other carriers need to rebuild their net-works, which will take time and money. While such work may have seemed like a good idea six months ago, the slowdown in the capital markets may make financing the upgrades tricky. In addition, U.S. consumers are slower than the Japanese to adopt new technologies and may not want some of the gee-whiz features that DoCoMo plans to roll out.
Another issue is price. Miwa Furukawa, a 25-year-old bank employee, uses her i-mode phone for sending e-mail and booking flights. While she says the coming 3G services sound attractive, she adds: "I pay about 10,000 yen (90 euros) for the cellphone monthly, which is already a burden for me. If I need to pay more for those new things, I doubt if it's worth it."
Perhaps the biggest controversy centers on a 3G service that looks, on paper, like a killer application: the video phone. Anyone with a 3G video-camera-phone will, in theory, be able to have a one-on-one video conference with someone who also owns a camera-phone.
That sounds convenient, but previous attempts at video phone service have foundered in part because of concerns about privacy. Kazuyuki Tagaya, the No. 2 man in Sanyo Electric Co.'s cell-phone division, frets about the implications of carrying a video phone on evening rambles. Says Mr. Tagaya: "Even if you're drinking beer, you can sound serious on the phone. But with video, people can see your face is red and you've got foam on your lips." <<
- Eric - |
