Let's get digital
Although analog cellular phones still exist in Japan, they have pretty much given way to digital models. This is because digital cellular phones offer a number of advantages over analog models. These include better sound quality, fewer roaming charges and enhanced privacy features which can protect your calls from being overheard since, like computer files, digital calls can be encrypted. While analog phones originally gave better sound quality than the digital phones which first appeared in the early 1990s, this is no longer the case. The one key advantage analog mobile phones have over digital models is they are usually less expensively priced. With constant store, dealer and service provider promotions, however, it's possible to get quality digital models at no initial cost. Unless you have a specific reason for wanting an analog mobile phone, you're better off choosing a digital model.

The third generation of mobile phones is coming upon us for a very simple reason; a lack of capacity under the current system. Today, in the early evening hours when mobile phone traffic is heaviest, there is a noticeable deterioration of phone speed and quality. This will only increase as more and more people get mobile phones and the saturation point in available cellular airspace comes closer and closer. The third generation of mobile phones addresses this problem by focusing on the fact that phones in the future won't be primarily used as vehicles for voice transmissions as they currently are today, but as vehicles for data transmission, which is the fastest growing area and is predicted to exceed voice transmissions by 2005. In fact, the third generation of mobile phones offers basically the same features which are available on the most advanced second generation mobile phones. The difference is in data transmission speed which is predicted to increase to the point where access to the Internet, sending digital images, exchanging text and doing video conferencing will be easy and economical.

The next generation
As anyone who has a mobile phone and travels the world knows, a mobile phone which works in one country may very well not work in another. This incapability of standards is one of the main problems the third generation of mobile phones wanted to address. The problem is that all the companies who have invested heavily in their second generation mobile phone systems want to make the third generation backward compatible with their second generation. Unfortunately, the two current third-generation standards being promoted are not fully compatible with all the second-generation phone standards and a compromise to make them compatible doesn't look promising.

There are currently two main third-generation systems vying to be the world standard for mobile phones in the future. W-CDMA (Wide-band Code Division Multiple Access) is the third-generation standard supported by mobile phone companies in Europe and NTT in Japan. CdmaOne is the rival third-generation standard being supported by the US, many Asian countries and several smaller Japanese rival telecommunication companies to NTT.

CdmaOne is already available in Japan and gives better quality voice service than that of NTT, which won't have its W-CDMA third-generation mobile phone system ready until March 2001. Although the entire debate is messy and complicated, it currently appears as if the W-CDMA camp has a slightly stronger team than their CdmaOne rivals. That means that the telecommunication carriers who have heavily invested in CdmaOne are slowly becoming isolated, which include carriers in the US, Korea and DDI and IDO of Japan. These companies definitely won't give up their standard without a fight, and the winning standard for the next millennium is still far from certain.

Reprinted by permission of Kansai Time Out.