SARS 2003 : Year witnessing the evolution of mobile internet in Japan from i-mode to FOMA and developing friendships
Not many young persons would have imagined how mobile phones became smart mobile devices today. Lucky for me, I witnessed the early adoption of Japanese early days of mobile internet called i-mode, developed by NTT Docomo to then the 3G mobile internet in Japan as early as 2003, the year when Sars struck the world except Japan. It was during this time that I recalled how involved I was in the telecommunication industry in both Japan and Singapore in these early days till 2006, just before Apple rolled out its first generation iphone in 2007.
To give a perspective, years before what we know today in year 2021 about mobile telecommunication ecosystem, Japan had already started “i-mode” development after the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995. During those early days, voice calls were available only. When NTT started to develop into a data-based system called PHS around 1998–2001, a new company called NTT Docomo was formed, and the mobile internet was coined as “i-mode”, meaning “internet mode”. Because I was posted to Japan right after the burst of the Y2K bubble, the Japanese internet or telecom industries seemed to be unscathed then and was developing a very unique technology that allow data to be accessed using the “wireless internet”. What was amazing was that back in those days, it was almost unimaginable that we could access internet browsers through wireless, and read information on our fingertips.
What was more impressive then was many new services and contents had built around this new industry, making “i-mode” a totally new fad, which was evolved from the PHS standard earlier. I remembered being very interested and later involved extensively in knowing many young Japanese entrepreneurs who were then fervently developing the entire ecosystem of mobile internet industry. T
“i-mode” mobile phones were then branded under NTT Docomo, AU, KDDI, Vodafone (even Softbank had not started its phone business), making the telecom companies the key driver of the entire industries. In Japan then, the telcos companies were the king, and many other phone manufacturers had to be branded under the few telecom giants. During those times, especially during SARS in 2003, it was such a fad that everyone was rushing to buy phones that could access the internet or use the embedded apps (called “Apuli” in Japanese), even though SARS virus apparently never even landed in Japan. It was interesting later to know that Apple came up with the concept of apps in its itunes stores, which was just what the Japanese started when it started to kickstart 3G technology in the market.
The most interesting evolution came when Japanese telecom giant NTT introduced FOMA, the Japanese first development on so called W-CDMA networks. It was able to download speed of up to 1.5 Mbps then, allowing us to download and stream “photographs and videos” ! The photographs I took as shown reminded how curious I was with this industry, and for the next few years, I got to meet almost the key personnel from Sony, NTT Docomo, Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic to young technology startup companies; and encouraged as part of Singapore’s government effort to support projects to kick start a series of R&D collaboration like the first W-CDMA research center as well as introduced many Japanese contents and service providers to Singapore. During those times, I remembered my mobile phone was able to watch both analog TV, as well as digital TV broadcast, almost forefront in any telecom technologies introduced by my Japanese friends and business associates. Following closely to this evolution, it helped me to build up many friendships till today in Japan who were involved in this what we coined as the “i-mode” era.
I would also view this golden era of Japanese mobile telecommunication as one that made me many friends, and also one that changed my perspective on how innovation alone might not help to propel any industries into the globalized world as the world juggled with many different standards. It will take an effort of many countries to come to a consensus like what we had today as an interoperable platform, where it became a norm to bring information across borders. Even with today’s geopolitical situation, it is a small wish to remind the younger generations that technology would transcend borders and it is where friends and not foes are built.
