Mobile Japan

Phone, originally uploaded by damien_m_in_japan.

Mobile phone technology in Japan is definitely leagues ahead of the rest of the world, technologies such as 3G, mobile payment methods, debit cards and travel passes are all combined into sleek, small and relatively cheap mobile handsets that also often include television too.

It seems that the Japanese people readily adopt and embrace new technology and so it means that the pace of development is quick. The journey to and from work each day brings new posters for the latest mobile phones, each more colourful, feature laden and smaller than the last. I have only been in Japan for 6 months but have seen the number of handsets offering the option to watch TV increase two or three fold.

The handset I own (see above) is a very lowly and feature lacking phone by comparison. It`s features include:

Bluetooth, Video Calling, 2MP camera, Mp3 player, Java games, Internet Access, Push email, 3D Java games, Micro SD slot, Video playback and standard PIM features (Calander, Contacts etc).    The cost of such lowly features? 1 yen (240yen = £1).

My phone is on a 2 year contract, something that is more common here and was the main reason the handset was only 1 yen. It seems the phone companies are willing to subsidise the cost of the phone to try and push more services, one of which was offered was flat rate Internet access, something that in the UK and maybe the US is a contentious issue at the moment.  Data rates are very low anyway, and the Yahoo! Keitai (Yahoo! Mobile) service offered is excellent, giving quick and easy access to essential information such as train routes, news and other standard mobile services.

Email is more popular than texting as there is no unified SMS service, meaning that if you have friends or contacts on another networks (other than Softbank it seems), you have to use email. The benefit of this is that  you can receive attachments, long emails and email PC users (and vice-versa). The cost is extremely low too, 1 yen for an SMS and about 3/4 yen for an email. It really makes email ubiquitous and the most convenient way to communicate.

Over the next few posts, I will delve deeper into the mobile web and the services offered, check back soon.

Damien