3G base station count - Japan:UK = about 7:1
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Japan has 6.5 times more 3G stations than UK May 10, 2010
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Earlier this year, the UK's mobile operator "Three" made headlines by announcing the installation of the 10,000th 3G base station. Such statistics taken on their own have little meaning unless they are put into context - that's what we are doing below (and in much more detail in our JCOMM report).
We simply ask:
How many 3G base stations are there in Japan and how many are there in UK?
The quick answer is:
Japan has at least 6.5 times more 3G base stations deployed, and
Japan adds as many 3G base stations every year as the sum-total installed in UK.
If anything this ratio will increase in favor of Japan: No. 3 operator SoftBank has plans to increase the number of base stations to 120,000 - four times today's number of all 3G base stations in UK of all operators - TWELVE times the 10,000 base stations announced by Three-UK. Could this be a "bubble"? We don't think so. On the contrary: with technological progress the cost and size of base stations is falling continuously. We think this is the real mobile economy, and Japan seems to be ahead in its implementation, helped by some excellent policy decisions. SoftBank's dramatic expansion plans and success story are not so good news for Google - because SoftBank's heavy involvement in YAHOO-Japan (for more details, see our SoftBank report).
You'll find a short analysis in this newsletter below, and very detailed base station statistics for Japan by operator and spectrum ranges and technologies in the 50th "jubilee" edition of our JCOMM-report and in even more detail in our reports covering DoCoMo, KDDI, SoftBank and eMobile. (We use several different industry sources to obtain these statistics, including the operators and Government sources, and Ofcom in UK. In some cases our reports include the names of base station vendors and their regional distribution when possible).
Celebrate with us: our bestselling JCOMM-report with a comprehensive analysis of Japan's telecom sector is now in its 50th edition!
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190,000 3G-base stations in Japan vs 30,000 in UK
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 This Figure compares the number of 3G base stations in Japan with the number of shared and UMTS base stations in UK.
There are at least 6.5 times more 3G base stations installed in Japan compared to UK
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Japan adds one UK's worth of 3G base stations each year
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 Japan's operators add about 30,000 3G and higher base stations each year - at least as many as the sum-total of all installed 3G base stations in UK. For detailed analysis see our JCOMM report.
Why is this important?
Mobile operators do much lifestyle related
advertising and branding - however in the end what really matters is
whether our mobile phones or iPads connect to the internet when and
where we all want - and for this the density of 3G base stations is the
main factor.
Of course the details are more complex. UK's Ofcom
published the number of shared base stations, and not the total number
of 3G base stations overall, therefore the actual number of 3G base
stations in UK might be even smaller than the number we use here. A
further point is, that each base station has a finite data capacity, and
can cover a fairly large area. When the data usage increases, network
engineers decrease the size of cells, and increase the number of base
stations. Thus the much higher number of base stations in Japan mainly
expresses the much higher data usage in Japan compared to Europe.
Wavelength also matters.
All industry insiders - and former
Japanese Vodafone customers - know that Vodafone in Japan invested only
in a comparatively small number of base stations. As our JCOMM report
documents in detail, a main component of SoftBank's turn-round strategy
after acquiring Vodafone-Japan was to bring the number of base stations
back up to Japanese requirements. Actually, at the point of Vodafone's
departure from Japan, the Technology Attaches of all EU Embassies asked
me to brief them about Japan's telecom sector, and our company was
awarded an EU project contract to benchmark Japan's telecom sector vs
EU's where we reported in detail on these issues to the EU.
If we
analyze the spacial density of base stations, we find 0.12/square-km
3G-base stations in UK, versus 0.52/square-km in Japan, while the
population densities are quite similar (252 people/sq-km in UK vs 348
people/sq-km in Japan).
The spacial density of 3G base stations is
more than 4 times higher in Japan compared to UK.
Celebrate with us: our bestselling JCOMM-report with a
comprehensive analysis of Japan's telecom sector is now in its 50th
edition!
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::: Galapagos-effect symposium :::
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Wednesday May 19, 2010 (EIJS Series, Embassy of Sweden, Tokyo, Japan):
Gerhard Fasol (speaker):
"The beauty of Japan's Galapagos effect - and how to go beyond".
Abstract: Japan has tremendous cultural impact on the world. However, even Japan's government officials now talk about the Galapagos effect: i-Mode, keitai, electronic money and Shinkansen are fantastic, but are largely confined to the islands of Japan. This talk will show why our world is a better place with even more of Japan's creativity - not less, and why some aspects of the Galapagos effect are welcome and create good opportunities. The speaker will include experience from working as the only non-Japanese on Japan's "post-Galapagos committee", and will show that for foreign companies working to enter and grow in Japan's markets it is better to understand the Galapagos effect and live and work WITH it, rather than against it.
Information and registration | Related presentation |
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::: Eurotechnology Japan newsletter schedule :::
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Newsletter schedule:
April 2010 issue:
"Japan's media revolution"
Based on Eurotechnology-Japan market research and presentations to top management of several of Europe's largest TV, newspaper and media corporations, and at the Global Media Forum BCWW2009 in Seoul, Korea.
May 2010 issue (planned - changes may occur):
"Electronic money and mobile payments"
Based on Eurotechnology-Japan market research and on presentations to executives of major US corporations in Japan at the American Chamber of Commerce (ACCJ), at MIT Enterprise Forum (Boston, MA), and other executive presentations.
Subscribe and download our monthly newsletters:
Single copy/individual subscription | Corporate subscription | download free sample
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Founded in 1996/1997 in Tokyo, Eurotechnology Japan KK focuses on telecommunications and environmental industries. We work on M&A and help foreign companies grow in Japan, we help Japanese companies globalize, and we have advised about 100 investment fund managers over the years on technology industries. Our founder Gerhard Fasol works with Japan's telecom industry since 1984.
Need more information?
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Sincerely,
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Your Eurotechnology-Japan Team
Eurotechnology Japan K. K. |
::: (c) 2010 Eurotechnology Japan KK. All Rights Reserved. :::
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