Ren,
> early EZ services and current JSky services in
> Japan were/are circuit-switched and they have
> millions of users, hardly a failure...
one reason might be that they are not *perceived* as slow by the user (I
heard that especially J-Phone optimized it so that the speed is almost
as fast as always-on packet switched). If the user experience is the
same in terms of speed, they don't care if the label is packet or
circuit.
But one difference is still important I think between "always on" packet
and "dial up" circuit: the e-mail functionality.
ASAIK i-mode handsets are the only ones where you will get your email
delivered immediately instead of just being alerted that you've got mail
on the server. I assume that this is possible because i-mode handsets
are always "online" and that actually *is* a big advantage of packet
switched networks (again, pls correct me if I am wrong!).
So, even if EZweb and J-Sky are successful in Japan, they are not as
successful as i-mode and since email is a killer app for Japanese mobile
users I would bet that the email push functionality is one clear
advantage of current i-mode handsets (speaking from my own user
experience: I love it).
But then again, with i-mode handsets you can only send and receive a
limited number of characters via email, where EZweb and J-Sky offer much
more "bandwidth". So its -- again -- a marketing and brand decision in
the end, maybe. Anybody here knows published survey data about the
individual motivations of mobile users in Japan to use i-mode or EZweb
or J-Sky?
Cheers,
Andrea
--
Andrea Hoffmann --- Editor-in-Chief --- MMJ Online
hoffmann_at_mobilemediajapan.com - http://mobilemediajapan.com
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Received on Wed Nov 8 06:30:53 2000