Here are snippets from, and links to, 10 interesting and useful Japan phone and telecommunications articles from Wikipedia.
Japanese mobile phone culture
In Japan, mobile phones have become ubiquitous. In Japanese, mobile phones are called keitai denwa, literally "portable telephones," and are often known simply as keitai.
Much of the Japanese population own cellular phones (especially flip phones), most of which are equipped with enhancements such as video and camera capabilities. As of May 2008, 31.3% of elementary school students, and 57.6% of middle school students own a cell phone, with many of them accessing the internet through them. This pervasiveness and the particularities of their usage lead to the development of a mobile phone culture, or "keitai culture."
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Talking on a mobile phone while riding a bus or train is frowned upon, and messages asking passengers not to make calls and to switch their phones to silent mode ("public mode" or "manners mode" in Japanese) are played frequently. This, combined with the low per-message price, ample allowed length per message (10,000 characters per message) the ability to enhance messages with special characters, emoticons, pictures, and small animations, and to write in English or Japanese, has made e-mailing from cell phones extremely popular among people of all ages.
Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_mobile_phone_culture.
Mobile phone
Interesting facts about mobile phones in Japan:
The first commercial citywide cellular network was launched in Japan by NTT in 1979.
The first full internet service on mobile phones was i-Mode introduced by NTT DoCoMo in Japan in 1999.
In 1999 Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo introduced its mobile internet service, i-Mode, which today is the world's largest mobile internet service and roughly the same size as Google in annual revenues.
In 2001 the first commercial launch of 3G (Third Generation) was again in Japan by NTT DoCoMo on the WCDMA standard.
Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone.
Personal Handy-phone System
PHS is, essentially, a cordless telephone like DECT, with the capability to handover from one cell to another. PHS cells are small, with transmission power of base station a maximum of 500 mW and range typically measures in tens or at most hundreds of meters (some can range up to about 2 kilometres in line-of-sight), as opposed to the multi-kilometer ranges of GSM. This makes PHS suitable for dense urban areas, but impractical for rural areas, and the small cell size also makes it difficult if not impossible to make calls from rapidly moving vehicles.
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Originally developed by NTT Laboratory in Japan in 1989 and far simpler to implement and deploy than competing systems like PDC or GSM, the commercial services has been started by three PHS operators (NTT-Personal, DDI-Pocket and ASTEL) in Japan in 1995. However, the service has been pejoratively dubbed as the "poor man's cellular", due to its limited range and roaming abilities. Market share in Japan has been declining and NTT DoCoMo, which has absorbed NTT Personal, and ASTEL is going to terminate the PHS service. Some of other countries have already terminated offering PHS services and migrated to GSM.
Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Handy-phone_System.
Japanese input methods
There are two main methods of inputting Japanese on computers. One is via a romanized version of Japanese called rōmaji (literally "Roman letters"), and the other is via keyboard keys corresponding to the Japanese kana. Some systems may also work via a graphical user interface, or GUI, where the characters are chosen by clicking on buttons or image maps.
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The system used to input Japanese on mobile phones is based on the numerical keypad. Each number is associated with a particular sequence of kana, such as ka, ki, ku, ke, ko for '2', and the button is pressed repeatedly to get the correct kana. Dakuten and handakuten marks, punctuation, and other symbols can be added by other buttons in the same way. Kana to kanji conversion is done via the arrow and other keys.
Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_input_methods.
Telephone numbers in Japan
The list covers the whole of Japan including:
03 Tokyo
04 (next digit 2) Tokorozawa
04 (next digit 7) Kashiwa
042 (next digit 6) Hachiōji
042 (next digit 7) Machida, Sagamihara
043 (next digit 2 or 3) Chiba
044 Kawasaki
045 Yokohama
046 (next digit 6) Fujisawa
046 (next digit 8) Yokosuka
047 (next digit 3) Ichikawa, Matsudo
047 (next digit 4 (3 for west part of the city)) Funabashi
048 (next digit 2) Kawaguchi
048 (next digit 6 or 7 or 8) Saitama
049 Kawagoe
Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%2B81.
List of dialing codes in Japan
The list (like the above Telephone numbers in Japan) covers the whole of Japan from Hokkaido to Okinawa and all points in between, such as Tokyo, Saitama and Chiba.
Kazuno, Akita 0186
Kitaakita District, Akita 0186
Minamiakita District, Akita 0185
Minamiakita District, Akita 0188
Noshiro, Akita 0185
Oga, Akita 0185
Ogachi District, Akita 0182
Ogachi District, Akita 0183
Odate, Akita 0186
Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialing_codes_in_Japan.
Integrated Services Digital Network
Integrated Services Digital Network is a telephone system network. Prior to the ISDN, the phone system was viewed as a way to transport voice, with some special services available for data. The key feature of the ISDN is that it integrates speech and data on the same lines, adding features that were not available in the classic telephone system. There are several kinds of access interfaces to the ISDN defined: Basic Rate Interface (BRI), Primary Rate Interface (PRI) and Broadband-ISDN (B-ISDN).
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In Japan, it became popular to some extent from around 1999 to 2001, but now that ADSL has been introduced, the number of subscribers is in decline. NTT, a dominant Japanese telephone company, provides an ISDN service with the names INS64 and INS1500, which are much less recognized than ISDN.
Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISDN.
au (mobile phone operator)
au (エーユー; pronounced Ēyū) , or au by KDDI, is a mobile phone brand in Japan marketed by KDDI Corporation in the main islands of Japan and Okinawa Cellular in Okinawa.
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The network that would eventually become au was originally set up as two networks: DDI and IDO. IDO's network was based upon the NTT Hi-cap analog cellular system, and began operations in December 1988 in the Kanto and Tokai regions. DDI's network was run by independent phone companies, and began service in 1989 using the TACS system elsewhere in Japan. Nippon Idou Tsushin (IDO) was owned by Toyota, whereas DDI was owned by Kyocera Corporation.
Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_(mobile_phone_operator).
NTT docomo
NTT docomo, Inc. (株式会社エヌ・ティ・ティ・ドコモ ,Kabushiki-gaisha Enutiti Dokomo, TYO: 9437, NYSE: DCM, LSE: NDCM) is the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan. The name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase, "do communications over the mobile network", and is also from a phrase dokodemo, meaning "everywhere" in Japanese. docomo provides phone, video phone (FOMA and Some PHS), i-mode (internet), and mail (i-mode mail, Short Mail, and SMS) services.
Docomo was spun off from Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) in August 1991 to take over the mobile cellular operations. docomo provides 2G (mova) PDC cellular services in 800 MHz and 1.5 GHz bands (total 34 MHz bandwidth), and 3G FOMA W-CDMA services in the 2 GHz (UMTS2100) and 800 MHz(UMTS800(Band VI)) and 1800 MHz(UMTS1800(Band IX)) bands. Its businesses also include PHS (Paldio), paging, and satellite. docomo ended PHS service on January 7, 2008.
Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTT_docomo.
SoftBank
SoftBank Corp. (ソフトバンク株式会社, Sofutobanku Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese telecommunications and media corporation, with operations in broadband, fixed-line telecommunications, e-Commerce, Internet, broadmedia, technology services, finance, media and marketing, and other businesses.
SoftBank was established in Tokyo, Japan on September 3, 1981, and had a market capitalisation of approximately US$32.8 billion at 28 February 2006.
SoftBank's corporate profile includes various other companies such as Japanese broadband company Cable & Wireless IDC, cable company BB-Serve, and gaming company GungHo Online Entertainment. Additionally, it has various partnerships in Japanese subsidiaries of foreign companies such as Yahoo!, E-Trade and Morningstar. SBI Group is a Japanese financial services company that began in 1999 as a branch of SoftBank.
SoftBank is the official carrier of the iPhone 3G for Japan.
Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softbank.
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