Friday Review: Turning Japanese
By Nick Wood, Total Telecom, in Tokyo.
Friday 01 November 13
Tokyo sets the standard when it comes to smart cities, but it remains to be seen whether other countries can use it as a blueprint.
'Big in Japan' is a tongue-in-cheek way of poking fun at something – typically a musical act – that may see success in Japan but is unlikely to achieve universal popularity. After three days in Tokyo at Ericsson's leisure, I'm left wondering whether this phrase will apply to smart cities.
"Japan has probably one of the best prerequisites for making a smart city materialise," declared Mats Olsson, head of Asia-Pacific at Ericsson, during the vendor's Business Innovation Forum in Tokyo this week.
"It has a government that is working intimately with operators, understanding what they need to do," and in NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank it has three strong telcos, he said: "[They] have all achieved critical mass, they are all profitable…
'Big in Japan' is a tongue-in-cheek way of poking fun at something – typically a musical act – that may see success in Japan but is unlikely to achieve universal popularity. After three days in Tokyo at Ericsson's leisure, I'm left wondering whether this phrase will apply to smart cities.
"Japan has probably one of the best prerequisites for making a smart city materialise," declared Mats Olsson, head of Asia-Pacific at Ericsson, during the vendor's Business Innovation Forum in Tokyo this week.
"It has a government that is working intimately with operators, understanding what they need to do," and in NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank it has three strong telcos, he said: "[They] have all achieved critical mass, they are all profitable…
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