Researchers and business elites of the telecommunications industry discussed the possibility of mobile and wireless telecommunications networks, a prospective major infrastructure undertaking for the future, at a recent seminar in Tokyo.
Shumpei Kumon, executive director of the International University of Japan's Center for Global Communications (GLOCOM), told the symposium last week that telecom companies cannot maintain current business models premised on conventional online communications networks.
Instead, the mobile and wireless telecommunications infrastructure will be built by local residents and industries as a cheaper information-distribution system that is easier to access, he said.
He also said the telecommunications industry in the United States is in a miserable state. "Japan's telecommunications industry of tomorrow may (face the fate of) the U.S. industry's today," Kumon warned.
Jonathan Aronson, a professor at the University of Southern California, stressed that the features of mobile and wireless telecommunications technologies, which can be linked with networks on streets, meet the demands of users.
David Isenberg, president of isen.com, a telecommunications analysis firm in the U.S., said the ongoing development of mobile and wireless telecommunications technologies provides newly established companies with business opportunities.
The GLOCOM Platform International Forum was organized by GLOCOM in cooperation with the Japan Foundation and The Japan Times.