ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the structure of the mobile telephony market, including some econometric analysis. Japan took an early lead in the mobile telephony sector when NTT DoCoMo launched i-mode in 1999, followed by the rollout of FOMA in 2001. Yet the initial take-up of FOMA was slower than the company anticipated; a three-way oligopoly emerged made up of NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, and Vodafone, and a number of other issues have arisen. The variety of mobile telephony services available in Japan can be broadly divided into second-generation (2G) mobile telephony services, third-generation (3G) mobile telephony services, and Personal Handyphone Systems services; and the services themselves can be classified as voice services and data services. Their 3G users had already surpassed 2G subscribers in 2003, and their transition is virtually complete with a 3G-to-2G ratio of 95:5. KDDI au’s great success can be attributed to the close affinity between cdmaONE and cdma2000 3G networks.
