> If Japan had adopted GSM or CDMA (they may have for all I know),
>the US and Europe probably would have adopted something else. Some phones
>in Japan say cdma1 on them. And some of those work worldwide. Is that
>the same CDMA you are talking about? I don't know. This is something
>I wish to know.
In 97/98 the Japanese government carried out a study to find out how they
could convert the Japanese cellular industry to GSM (their first choice) or
alternatively CDMA, aka CDMA One, aka IS-95 (their second choice).
The trouble was that the legacy of PDC (including the way frequencies were
used) did not allow any deployment of GSM nor CDMA One. It was then decided
to adapt CDMA for the Japanese PDC band and its specialties (such as uplink
and downlink being reversed and the band being cluttered in patches all
over the 800 and 900 MHz bands with various different duplex separations.
This adaption resulted in a Japanese flavour of CDMA, which uses the same
standards as IS-95, with the exception that the air interface was
customised to the Japanese PDC band. This means that the CDMA One service
operated by KDDI is not exactly compatible with the international CDMA One
used elsewhere as far as handsets and radio towers are concerned.
This means that Japanese CDMA One phones cannot be used overseas apart from
two models, the Sanyo C-111 (no data capabilities and very bulky) and a
recent addition also by Sanyo (with data capabilities for Japan but not
overseas). As these special handsets are bulkier than the domestic only
ones, only very few people choose them and roaming with Japan remains
rather more theoretical than practical.
> Japan was first in a lot of this stuff, I think.
In this field I'm afraid not.
The first mobile phone service was operated by the German railways in the
1920s on a train service between Berlin and Hamburg. The first cellular
system was described in a patent by AT&T in the early 1950s, but the
technology wasn't yet there to build a network (basically realtime
databases for HLR and VLR were the missing pieces). But the US and some
European countries deployed operator assisted mobile phone networks in the
1950s.
The first cellular systems were being deployed in the 1980s in the US and
Japan had the first commercial launch. Germany was the first to introduce
SIM cards (C-Netz) and the Nordic Countries and Switzerland were the first
to agree cross-border standards and implement international roaming (NMT).
Europe was first to go fully digital with GSM. Before then, Japan had two
analog systems, an NTT homegrown system, often referred to as the NTT
system and a Japanese flavour of the British TACS, therefore referred to as
J-TACS. Even though GSM was being developed in Europe and a digital
extension to the AMPS system in the US, both with international roaming
capabilities, Japan developed PDC as a homegrown digital system.
Only very late, did the Japanese realise that something had gone wrong.
Inspired by Koreas success the Japanese government wisely decided to
explore ways to deploy a standard cellular system in Japan. The Koreans had
earlier abandoned their homegrown system and converted successfully to CDMA
One, aka IS-95, which eventually led to Korean manufacturers becoming
market leaders in CDMA equipment.
CDMA had been developed in the US in the 1940s for military applications.
Eventually, Qualcomm used the CDMA access method as a base for a cellular
phone system, now known as CDMA One, later standardised in the US as IS-95.
The Japanese did not develop CDMA One, nor did Japan adopt any standards
before 1998.
Japanese firsts (not exhaustive) were ...
- first commercial launch of a cellular service with automatic
cell-handover (NTT system 1979/1980)
- first deployment of microcell network on a large scale (PHS in 1995)
[Respect to the RF planners!!!]
- first launch of a mobile internet service with volume based charge
instead of time based charge (i-Mode)
- first trial launch of a third generation mobile phone network (FOMA)
Why didn't Europe and the US
>follow Japan? It looks to me like the US and Europe
>did not want Japan to supply their parts, because that would have put some
>major
>players in those countries out of the game.
The major players, Nokia and Ericsson back then were lesser known than
Sony, Sanyo, Matsushita, Panasonic, NEC etc. The Japanese staying out
helped Ericsson and Nokia to conquer the top spots. One could argue they
merely filled the vacuum the Japanese manufacturers had voluntarily left
and I doubt it would have been that easy for them if they would have faced
serious competiton from Japanese manufacturers.
If you want to criticise the Europeans for blocking Japanese technology,
then please do so with the appropriate item. GSM is a European standard
and CDMA One is a US developed standard and neither the Europeans nor the
US did walk away from a standard due to Japanese adoption. Nor did any of
this come out of Japan.
However, the Europeans did block the adoption of PHS as a cordless standard
in Europe, foolishly. What is GSM to the cellular world - most widely
adopted system with economies of scale - PHS is to the cordless world, but
the Europeans blocked its adoption as a cordless standard. You may
criticise them for that, and I join in with you.
The question "Why did Europe and the US not follow Japan (and the whole of
Asia and Latin America) to adopt PHS as a cordless standard?" is absolutely
justified and their refusal to do so just as s-t-u-p-i-d as the Japanese
going it alone on cellular with PDC.
> You make it seem like "Japan" is stupid, but maybe its that the "US"
>and "Europe"
>out maneuvered "them" Its been done before.
In this case the Japanese out-maneuvred themselves.
I am not criticising Japan just for the fun of it or because it's Japan. If
this was about kicking a country's butt I don't particularly like, I would
rather choose to bash Korea, but unfortunately the Koreans have been doing
the right thing and they are harvesting the fruits now, while Japan has
not, very unfortunately so.
The Japanese did very well with PHS, continue to do so and they have my
full respect for it and my support.
However, in cellular, the Japanese didn't even manage to wholeheartedly
follow the Korean example and I criticise that and support those Japanese
who try to move towards standards and open markets, i.e. ex-minister for
post and telecommunications and now prime minister Koizumi.
As I mentioned before a bit more Meiji spirit instead of Sakoku spirit.
> Standards are not always followed. And there are often competing
>standards.
>Some "standards" that aren't followed uniformly: WAP, SQL, HTML,
>JavaScript~(???), Java.
>Some standards that are competing worldwide: temperature (F vs C),
>Electric Voltage Sockets, VCR
>types,
>(MFi SMAF midi and smd), television frequencies, etc etc.
The trouble is that the Japanese didn't go for any of the competing
standards, they chose to stay out.
In most cases not adopting standards costs the economies a lot of
unrealised potential, even real cost.
Do you know that the US car industry changed to the metric system
internally and it saved them a fortune ?! The metric system is a good
example of how good standards work. In the metric system everything is
based on units of 1, 10, 100 etc. It is a lot more effective to calculate
units in the metric system, i.e. *1* Watt is the energy equivalent of
accelerating *1* Kg by *1* m/sec within *1* sec. The imperial system is
inferior not because it is "imperial", but because it is a lot more error
prone with, i.e 17.3338 pounds per 5.72942 square inches etc etc. I believe
as a QA engineer you will appreciate this.
kind regards
benjamin
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Received on Tue Jul 31 17:03:23 2001