Hello everyone, and welcome back to another issue of TÉKUNI.
Fumio Kishida was officially elected Japan's 100th prime minister this month, and almost immediately started a brutal crackdown on tech theft by China.
In other news, the country’s government announced the establishment of a 100 billion yen fund for advanced technologies R&D, and NEC said it will build a transatlantic cable connecting U.S. and Europe.
Also, a nationwide system failure recently hit telecommunication giant NTT Docomo, leaving the whole of Japan without mobile service access for roughly three hours.
This issue of TÉKUNI is about these disruptions, and more generally the state of mobile networks in Japan.
👨💻 TÉKUNI Exclusive - Adrian David Cheok AM
Adrian is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Professional University of Information and Management for Innovation (iUniversity) in Tokyo, Japan.
In 2019, The Governor-General of Australia, representative of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, awarded him Australia’s highest honour: the Order of Australia for his contribution to international education and research.
“I was born and raised in Adelaide, Australia, and graduated from the University of Adelaide with a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical and Electronic) with First Class Honours in 1992 and an Engineering PhD in 1998.”
Some time after his studies, Adrian moved to Japan, where he worked for almost 20 years. First at Mitsubishi Electric, then Keio University and eventually at iUniversity.
His experience in telecommunications, therefore, comes not only from his PhD studies but also from research and industrial projects he has worked on during his career.
“Of course part of my job is teaching. I teach topics such as radio, telecommunications, and the Internet of Things. Another part of our job is collaborating with companies in various projects, and our University has a lab called ‘B Lab’ where it collaborates with about 200 companies.”
Talking about 5G, Adrian says Japan was one of the first nations to embrace the technology, with the main Japanese carriers planning to spend more than $14 billion in base stations, servers and fibre optics.
According to data gathered by Fitch Research, 5G will become the dominant cellular technology in the country by 2026, with roughly 45 million 4G subscriptions and more than 151 million 5G subscriptions by 2029.
“Therefore I believe Japan ranks as one of the most advanced countries for 5G in the world.”
The Docomo outage
Talking about the Docomo outage, Adrian quotes the Japan Government Communications Ministry about the event, who categorised it as a serious incident.
“About two million Docomo customers did not have voice or data services at one point, some for more than two hours,” Adrian said.
The main reason behind the outage was reportedly a communication failure, followed by backed up data overwhelming the overall system.
“The reason [behind the outage was an] abnormally high data backup, rather than any intrinsic hardware errors. Thus, I think it does not mean there is a serious future concern for using Docomo services in Japan,” Adrian explains.
According to the communications expert, the outage would have been quite difficult to prevent as it was a combination of a system error and a substantial amount of data being backed up.
“This kind of situation could happen to any telephone operator. From my understanding of the announcements made by Docomo in Japan, they take the issue very seriously and would prevent a similar problem from happening again.”
However, Adrian also believes it is not entirely possible to rule out that outages like this may happen again in the future.
“Please note [that] even huge companies like Facebook can experience [system] failure[s].”
The future of 5G in Japan
Looking at the future of mobile telecommunications in Japan, Adrian believes the country has a tendency to quickly take up new technologies, so it won’t be long before 5G becomes the norm.
“It is almost without a doubt 5G will become normal soon in Japan. What is intriguing is that Japanese companies and researchers are already planning for 6G.”
However, Adrian also believes that Japan has a “unique and maybe strange combination” of attraction to new technologies and a tendency to remain quite traditional and conservative as a society.
“It is this interplay of technology and culture which is interesting. Sometimes Japan comes out first, [like with] the original iMode Docomo phones, which were very advanced compared to the rest of the world in terms of data and internet to mobile phones.”
“However they became ‘stuck’ on the iMode system and finally totally lost out to Apple iOS and Google's Android. So now Japan is actually not so advanced in terms of mobile technology. They are using iPhone and Android phones, like the rest of the world.”
❓ Want to find out more about the latest tech news in Japan?
🔗 Here is the newsletter’s link section:
Tokyo Game Show kicks off with virtual experience - The Mainichi
NEC's new undersea cable quadruples data transfer - NHK
EU-Japan mission gets pictures of Mercury - Interesting Engineering
Japanese businesses to offer benefits using vaccination app - Kyodo
Unmanned machines fly to rural Japan's rescue - The Japan Times
Key electronics fair opens with spotlight on low-carbon tech - Kyodo
Kyocera unveils advanced driver-assistance systems - Kyocera
Japan puts successor to GPS-improving satellite into orbit - Kyodo
Fishers test drone system to spot poachers - NHK
Mazda to cut production due to chip shortage - NHK
Japan fighter loses 90-kg canopy in mid-flight, no injuries - Kyodo
Mitsubishi Electric suspends fridge production - NHK
Nippon Steel sues Toyota, Baoshan for patent infringement - Reuters
US asks Kawasaki Heavy to inspect carriages over derailment - Kyodo
Shipments of consumer electronics plunge in Japan - NHK
Power outage at Universal Studios Japan leaves 35 stranded - Kyodo
GPS devices may be used on flight risk defendants - NHK
Android spyware spreading as antivirus in Japan - Bleeping Computer
Kamen Rider Revi’s hoverbike is a real thing - Sora News
Toyota launches C+walk T in Japan - Toyota
Dragon Ball’s Frieza appears in giant 3-D in Shinjuku - Sora News
This Japanese robot toy is made for your cat to play with - TimeOut
Gundam centre celebrates its eco-friendly movement - Sora News
Asakusa Tobu Hotel now has a room with a train simulator - TimeOut
Japan c.bank will seek digital yen with 'simple' design - Reuters
Ashikaga Flower Park has 5 million flower-shaped lights - TimeOut
Japan startup unveils $680,000 hoverbike - Reuters
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