Cell Phones in Japan

Yesterday, twelve A/W (Autumn/Winter) model cell phones were announced from Japan’s No.2 cell phone service company “au”. They are not yet on sale but will be soon. All of the phone service companies promote few new models at once, but twelve is still a big number. I believe this is due to the new service of “number portability” that the cell phone carrier companies are starting this October.

Until today, when you wanted to switch cell phone carrier for example from company A to company B you had to change your phone number and that was common sense. It was nothing different from having to have to change your home phone number when you moved to a new address. (And of course, even if you stay with the same carrier you’ll have to have a new number if you wanted a new contract.)

However, you can’t deny the troublesomeness of having to have to tell your friends, colleagues and business partners when you changed your phone, so you kind of want to stay with your old phone or transfer the memory & personal data to a new model in a same carrier even if you want to change the hardware of your cell.
For this reason the spread rate of cell phones have stabilized and the service companies are stuck with ideas of drawing large numbers of new users.

In such situation, the “number portability” service sounds attractive to the users because it’s convenient and hassle-free, and to the carriers because they are given fairer competition conditions among each other.

I wasn’t sure so I looked up on the web and found out that this kind of service has started in other parts of the world much earlier. I was surprised to learn that the introduction of number portability is obligated in Europe, and also the service started in the States back in 2003. So I guess we’re behind. Come on Japan.

That thought made me feel like the Japanese cell phone market is enclosed in a way, because we don’t get much information about the use of cell phones outside of Japan. I even think that the way our phones evolve is quite unique (I wrote about that on Japan Mode so check it out if you’re interested in Japanese “kay-tie”). Anyway, it’s not too much to say that the introduction of number portability service in Japan is going to escalate the competition in the cell phone industry here in our society. In fact, I too am one of those people who are looking forward to new services and models (gadget freak). Geez, I can’t imagine working for one of those companies tho...