I may be off the map with the following wild speculation:
If Japan had adopted GSM, then their would have been SIM cards (when did SIM
Lock come along ?), allowing handset vendors to sell handsets directly to
consumers, reducing the iron grip that the mobile carriers have on handset
specs in Japan, which would have created WAP-like lack of clear definition
of specs, which would have created the interoperability problems which have
handicapped WAP, crippling growth. Also the dramatically cheaper (like less
than half the manufacture price of PDC) handsets would have meant that
subsidies would have been much less, allowing operators to price
significantly lower, enabling lower ARPU for average Japanese subscriber.
So the result would have been that the Japanese consumer would not be
charged significantly higher for his phone service, he would have had a much
simpler lower cost phone, and my final wild thought for the evening (it is
12.38am with me) is that as he/she could have roamed, he/she probably would
have screamed to the high heavens when he got home and was subjected to the
terrible voice quality, so the carriers would have found some solution other
than halving the CODEC rate.
So as a result of this subsidy being paid by 60 million mobile subscribers,
as was mentioned many mails back, there have been the funds for Japanese
companies to make handsets, they would never have got a chance to in the
first place, due to being late to market.
Philip
Network365 Japan
Benjamin Kowarsch wrote:
> >Benjamin,
> >
> >> What would have been different, though if Japan had
> >> adopted a standard,
> >
> >don't you think that these "What would have been different,
> >if..." comments are pretty much useless these days?
[ excessive quoting removed ]
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Received on Tue Jul 31 18:44:30 2001