NTT Docomo postpones the release of a Tizen phone

In this case, it's probably more like how a doctor "delays" administering treatment to a terminally ill patient while doing triage and gives morphine instead to ease the pain.

When plans for a Tizen phone were first announced, we were skeptical of the chances for success and of docomo's motives for release. At the time, the only consideration was Android and how it greatly hindered the carrier's abilities to charge money for things like putting a song on your phone or a new ringtone. Now that docomo has the iPhone, I really don't see Tizen in the picture. Making their services compatible also would have required a lot of resources, leaving little left for Tizen.

As data-based, alternate communication forms (Skype, Line, VoIP, hangouts) continue to eat into profits from voice calls, docomo is still looking for a way to increase revenue from premium content and related services because they are shifting 10% of their workforce, or roughly 2000 people to content and e-commerce.

For now, Tizen is not going to be their solution, which is probably a good thing.

Japan Communications to bring landline numbers to Japanese mobile phones

Frank Sanda, general telecom disrupter and founder and CEO of Japan Communications Inc., the provider of b-mobile products, recently announced on twitter that they are "about bring Tokyo landline numbers to mobile phones". That is, you could have a 03-xxxx-xxxx phone number attached to your smartphone. This will make your mobile number indistinguishable at a glance from a normal landline phone and will allow people to call you for a fraction of the cost they would incur if they called your mobile number.

He also said that the goal for JCI this next year is to move in the same revenue class (trillion yen) as NTT East and NTT West, and he thinks this "03 Smartphone" will do just that. And he also thinks the NTTs are going to need some help from someone, somewhere.

As far as I can see, the way this is going to happen is using VoIP ("IP softphone") with a "Class A" LTE connection. If so, not only will calling in be cheaper, so will calling out. Docomo charges ¥42 per minute to place an out-of-network call from an LTE phone. Doing the same with VoIP costs one tenth of that price, and if the connection is good, (I'll come back to that later) the voice quality is loads better due to the use of higher-quality codecs.

A bit of background:

Phone Numbers in Japan

In Japan, prefixes are typically reserved for particular types of devices. Mobile phones are allocated numbers beginning with 090, 080, and (recently), 070. Because incoming calls are charged to the caller, calling a mobile phone can be quite expensive. A commonly available option is an iP (VoIP) softphone app for your smartphone that is attached to a 050 number. However, the incoming calls to a 050 number can still incur a premium charge, above the cost of a standard local call. So, the best would be to have a normal number attached to your cellphone, for example a “03” Tokyo prefix.

Using a SIP client with a purchased 03 DID allows this right now, which is similar to what many of us do to get a phone number from “back home”. (I used to use callwithus, but now have a free DID from callcentric at which I point my Google Voice number.) While this is easy and straightforward in most countries, it is a bit more complicated here in Japan (though not impossible).

Quality of Service

Part of the reason why you can’t just get a prepackaged VoIP plan for your mobile phone with a 03 number is because there are minimum requirements before particular prefixes may be allocated. For a standard landline (固定電話) number to be allocated to a VoIP provider, the line must be CLASS A, capable of an R-factor greater than 80 for 95% of the time with less than 100 ms latency (according to wikipedia). A Class B (>70 and <150 ms) line may only be allocated to a 050 number.

A Caveat

LTE is technically Class A and could qualify for a standard landline number allocation.

Technically.

Realistically, I’m a bit skeptical how well this will work out. At peak times, the carriers are beyond capacity. I think the 95% of the time R factor requirement might be hard to meet. NTT East and West, as well as NTT Docomo and NTT Communications - hell, all the NTTs - are going to fight this. I’m sure all but Docomo will use the same argument that LTE doesn’t yet qualify as Class A. On top of this, you have inconsistent behavior with VoIP apps across different smartphones, as well as potential concerns with battery.

Japanese Mobiles to get 070 prefix from November 2013

Japan uses preallocated prefixes for particular types of phone numbers. Currently, 090 and 080 numbers are reserved for mobile phones, 070 is for PHS, and 050 is for a particular type of IP Phone.

At first, mobiles used only 090 with additional prefixes allocated as needed, starting with 080 in around 2005 and now 070. Only a portion of 070 will be used for mobile; a chunk of numbers will remain PHS.

• Mobile: 070-1 to 4 and 070-7 to 9
• PHS: 070-5 and 6

However, the MIC is considering to allow portability of numbers between PHS and mobiles. It will then not be possible to tell the difference based on the number alone. Plans call for a specific initial ringtone to denote if the destination is PHS. This will be provided by Wilcom, the only PHS provider by November 2013.

MIC information page (J).