From e-Japan to u-JapanJapan’s ICT Policy

MovementsShiro Uesugi

Matsuyama UniversityVisiting Fellow

Australia-Japan Research Centre

Beginning of e-Japan• November 2000, “IT Basic Law” (Basic Law on the

Formation of an Advanced Information and Telecommunication Network Society) was launched– very short time of discussion, quick adoption

• Promotion of economic BPR by e-Commerce and new business

• cheaper and more diversified information for rich life• realizing vital regional community• promoting private sector initiative• fair deal with digital divide• fair use of IT for employment problems

• Legitimate formation of “IT Strategic Headquarters”

e-Japan

• Phase I (2001)– January: e-Japan Strategy was announced

• “ To become the most developed countries in the world in ICT”

– June: e-Japan Program was released

• Phase II (2003)– March: e-Japan Strategy II was revealed

• Emphasize the use and applications– July: e-Japan Strategy II was adopted

e-Japan Strategy I

• Developing Infrastructure for ICT by 2005– High speed Internet Access

• 30 million household– Ultra High speed Internet Access

• 10 million household

• Both achieved in 2003– Population coverage by the end of 2003

• 77.3 million people (60.6%)– Price for bradband access

• 16.19 million people, 2,500 yen (A$ 30)

e-Japan Strategy II

• Use of e-Government– Electric filing of GOJ 96% by the end of 2003

• Use of e-Commerce– Internet Trade (Stocks Market) 23% of all

exchange by the end of 2003• (e-Japan Strategy II emphasizes) “IT utilization

and applications while setting forth goals for realizing an ‘energetic worry-free, exciting and more convenient’ society”

Side-dishes for e-Japan• LGWAN

– January 1997, Kasumigasemi adopted to new OA system – New Kasumigaseki-WAN

– By the end of 2002, General public administration network system emerged to LGWAN (Local Government WAN)

• By virtue, all local government network system are connected (or included) to Kasumigaseki-WAN

• Resident-registry network system– Phase I

• August 2002, all residents of Japan are numbered with 11 digits “Resident-code”• The system intended for the use of personal identification for 93 administrative process,

including claims for childcare welfare, unemployment insurance, pensions, passport issuance.

– Phase II• August 2003, residents can get the copy of residential registry documents in any

municipality all over Japan• IC smart cards were issued on demand basis, can be include additional services

informations

How much were spent?

Government’s spending on IT(1 A$ = 80 yen) in Million A$ (Source: MIC)

20,694

24,005 24,835

19,23817,521

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

30,000

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Evaluation of e-Japan

• GOJ says “Great success”– “Let’s move to next step ! ”

• General publics say “Who cares”

e-Japan referred in articles

• Numbers of Literatures (Source:Nichigai)

3

68

105

53

65

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Move to u-Japan

• March 2004: “Policy Roundtable for Realizing Ubiquitous Network Society”launched

• May 2004: “Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy (CEFP)” released an outline of the u-Japan initiative

• June 2004: The Cabinet Meeting decided “The u-Japan Initiative”

4 Components of u-Japan• Ubiquitous

– Anywhere, anytime, anyone, anything• Universal

– Gentle to people, Touching Heart• User-oriented

– Needs Seeds, Prosumer• Unique

– Active Individual, Vitalizing Society and business=>> 4 U (for you) !!

• Mr. Masahiro Yoshizaki (Director, General Policy Division, (ICT) Policy Planning Bureau, MIC)

u-Japan• 17 December 2004, released the final report from The

Policy Roundtable for Realizing Ubiquitous Network Society (Chaired by MURAKAMI Teruyasu, Nomura Research Institute)

• Established in March 2004 as a roundtable of the Director-General for Policy Planning (in charge of information and communications), in order to investigate a concrete form and a policy package for realization and the like, in anticipation of the coming about of a ubiquitous network society in 2010.

• The policy roundtable recently compiled its final report and is now announcing it.

• (Contituinued)• Japan is facing a number of issues such as fewer children and an aging

society, as well as deterioration in security and safety in daily life, as it heads to 2010. In these circumstances, and against the background of the rapid positioning of ICT (Information and Communications Technology) as a basis of society, the expectation is growing that its efficient use will bring about breakthroughs in solving the issues that are being faced.

This policy roundtable has defined the u-Japan (Ubiquitous Japan) as a social structure for 2010 that will have solved issues using ICT, and has proposed a policy package and the like for this to be realized.

The MIC will take the policy group's proposal into consideration and will continue its investigations in anticipation of the realization of a ubiquitous network society.(source MIC)

Visions of u-JapanRealization of a society in which• Networks are comfortably used anytime,

anywhere• New business and services emerge one after

another• Everyone can securely live in peace• Individual power is fully nurtured

– CEEF’s FY2005 priority policy measures in the ICT field

– MIC asks for 69,100 million yen or A$ 863.75 million (approx. 1/2 of MIC budget) still only 1/20 of whole e-Japan budget of 2004

Visions of u-Japan

• By 2010, u-Japan will generate– the “direct economic effects on related

markets would be approximately 87.6 trillion yen per annum” and “the ripple effects on other markets approximately 120.5 trillion yen”

– the “cumulative direct economic effects” of 449 trillion yen, and “economic ripple effects”of 611 trillion yen

(Source: MIC)

Image of Ubiquitous Networks I

Image of Ubiquitous Networks

• Example of the use of Ubiquitous Network is shown in detail

(in Chapter 1 of 2004 WHITE PAPER “Information and Communications in Japan 2004)

Changes in Lifestyles

Ubiquitous re-visited

• “Ubiquitous”– Dr. Mark Wiser (1952-1999) @ Palo Alto since 1988– Ubiquitous computing is roughly the opposite of

virtual reality. Where virtual reality puts people inside a computer-generated world, ubiquitous computing forces the computer to live out here in the world with people. Virtual reality is primarily a horse power problem; ubiquitous computing is a very difficult integration of human factors, computer science, engineering, and social sciences. (http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/UbiHome.html)

Ubiquitous• Ubiquitous Computing has roots in many aspects of computing. In its current form, it was first articulated by Mark

Weiser in 1988 at the Computer Science Lab at Xerox PARC. He describes it like this: • Ubiquitous Computing #1• Inspired by the social scientists, philosophers, and anthropologists at PARC, we have been trying to take a radical

look at what computing and networking ought to be like. We believe that people live through their practices and tacit knowledge so that the most powerful things are those that are effectively invisible in use. This is a challenge that affects all of computer science. Our preliminary approach: Activate the world. Provide hundreds of wireless computing devices per person per office, of all scales (from 1" displays to wall sized). This has required new work in operating systems, user interfaces, networks, wireless, displays, and many other areas. We call our work "ubiquitous computing". This is different from PDA's, dynabooks, or information at your fingertips. It is invisible, everywhere computing that does not live on a personal device of any sort, but is in the woodwork everywhere.

• Ubiquitous Computing #2• For thirty years most interface design, and most computer design, has been headed down the path of the

"dramatic" machine. Its highest ideal is to make a computer so exciting, so wonderful, so interesting, that we never want to be without it. A less-traveled path I call the "invisible"; its highest ideal is to make a computer so imbedded, so fitting, so natural, that we use it without even thinking about it. (I have also called this notion "Ubiquitous Computing", and have placed its origins in post-modernism.) I believe that in the next twenty years the second path will come to dominate. But this will not be easy; very little of our current systems infrastructure will survive. We have been building versions of the infrastructure-to-come at PARC for the past four years, in the form of inch-, foot-, and yard-sized computers we call Tabs, Pads, and Boards. Our prototypes have sometimes succeeded, but more often failed to be invisible. From what we have learned, we are now explorting some new directions for ubicomp, including the famous "dangling string" display. (ibid.)

http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/PersonWorldDistinction4Up.gif

Mobile Payment – a Real Application of Ubiquitous

http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/p_s/products/foma/901i/f901ic/index.html

• Mobile phone with IC card to store e-money

• E-money (“Edy” can be directly move over mobile phone network)

• Some phones with biometric identification functions

“Successful”? e-Japan?

• Argument #1– Even though the super high speed internet access is

available, the numbers of actual users stays far less than the capacity of network

– The numbers of users on contract basis• DSL: 12.8 million • CATV: 2.79 million• FTTH: 2.03 million (as of end September, ’04)

– The figures include business sectors (source MIC)

“Successful”? e-Japan

• Widening gap in relation to regions– Rural areas are left behind– Government Agency of rural region is less

capable

• As the consequence, the accessibility to broadband is not evenly guaranteed

“Broadband Divide”

• As e-Japan proceeds, “Broadband Divide” has been pressing issues– Statistics: Increasing data volume of Web contents:

30 KB/page in Feb. 1998==> 158KB/page in Feb. 2004

• “Windows Update” does not work properly during the session under non-broadband environment（Nikkei Communication 2005/3/1)

My project in Ikazaki Town• Small numbers of subscribers: 7 house• Small amount of budget: A$ 10,000.-• High-tech though handle-able by local residents: VDSL/ p-DSL

(proxi-DSL)• Reported on Nikkei Communication 15/3/2005, p.66, as “One of

Advanced Case of the collaboration among government sector, industry, academic, and local community”.

(Problems)• No co-operation from GOJ agency• Low “interests” from local people(Future Work)• Attractive applications• Educate local people – show how to use• Study more about the “Problems” – how, why, so?

http://shiro.cocolog-nifty.com/ikazaki/

MIC presents Policy to tackle with Broadband divide

• June 2004, set up “Study Group on Putting in Place Balanced Nationwide Broadband Platforms and Invites Comments on Plan for Eliminating Zero Broadband Areas”

– Chaired by Professor Emeritus SAITO Tadao, Tokyo University(1) Installation of the broadband infrastructure is currently progressing centered on urban areas, and installation is not going ahead in areas where one cannot expect investments from private sector companies because of profitability problems, and so the elimination of the digital divide caused by geographical factors has become a pressing issue.

(2) Against this background, and taking into consideration that regional public bodies are expected to play a important role in installing a broadband infrastructure, especially in areas where private sector work is behind, organizing concrete issues and examples of approaches and introducing them to prefectures and municipalities based on advance examples and successful examples to date (best practices), and contributing to putting in place a speedier, more efficient and more effective regional broadband infrastructure in regional areas, along with clarifying the role and positioning of regional public bodies.

(3) In the plan for accelerating the installation of a regional broadband infrastructure (draft), proposing that FTTH should be kept in mind as the ultimate in the installation of a regional broadband infrastructure, but also the rapid installation of other media as an important choice option in zero broadband areas, the carrying out of a quantitative analysis on the current state of the digital divide. Along with this, announcing a quantitative analysis concerning the state of the digital divide and the meaning and for its elimination and the results of a nationwide survey concerning a support measure of ADSL subsidies, etc., by regional public bodies.(source MIC)

Who are the beneficiaries?• Industries?

– “IT” to “ICT”• NRI? Hitachi? Genuine BPR?

• Small businesses?– Still lacking human resources

• General House Holds?– Internet as “Hobby”? Or “BHN”?

• Governments?– GOJ (Central/Peripheral), Provincial, Municipal

• Different levels of Governance

Conclusions

• Further investigation needed to – assess whether e-Japan promoted Japan’s IT

competitiveness?– assess economic efficiency

References• Mark Weiser. "The world is not a desktop". Interactions; January 1994; pp. 7-8. • Mark Weiser, "Hot Topics: Ubiquitous Computing" IEEE Computer, October 1993. • Mark Weiser, "Some Computer Science Problems in Ubiquitous Computing," Communications of

the ACM, July 1993. (reprinted as "Ubiquitous Computing". Nikkei Electronics; December 6, 1993; pp. 137-143.)

• Mark Weiser, "The Computer for the Twenty-First Century," Scientific American, pp. 94-10, September 1991

• http://www.johotsusintokei.soumu.go.jp/whitepaper/eng/WP2004/2004-index.html• http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/p_s/products/foma/901i/f901ic/index.html• http://www.soumu.go.jp/s-news/2004/041217_8.html