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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
AT&T is pushing Japanese-style wireless services in the U.S. But until cellphones are as fun to use in New York as they are in Tokyo, a jaded market is likely to keep yawning.
May 22, 2002 | "I still have Japan-envy," admits Matthew Hart. It's not that Hart doesn't cherish his new cellphone, or appreciate having a real "mLife" before most Americans. It's just that "the 3G videophones they have over there, the ones that open up with the big color screens ..." He trails off wistfully. "We're getting closer, but we're still nowhere near Japan."
Hart, a commercial real estate developer in Palm Beach, Fla., is a self-described gadget and cellphone junkie -- he keeps 15 or so retired handsets in his closet. He's the kind of guy who gets a kick out of using his Bluetooth-enabled cellphone as a cable-free modem for his Bluetooth-enabled PowerBook so that he can check his e-mail in a park (just for example). The type who hangs around in chat rooms explaining to innocents the difference between locked and unlocked handsets, and why you should pay more for the latter. The kind who buys a T68i handset -- not officially available in the U.S. yet -- off eBay because it's slightly better than his still-new T68 (a replacement for the Nokia 8890 he got in London).
And he's precisely the kind of guy AT&T Wireless must win over with the mMode service launched April 16 (in select US markets including Palm Beach) if it's to have any hope with more typical U.S. cellphone users. A central feature of the company's obscurely marketed mLife "wireless lifestyle," mMode is an imitation of imode, the highly successful, always-on data service offered by NTT DoCoMo in Japan.
Imode users (over 32 million at last count) can buy tickets, find the nearest Starbucks, download and swap pictures, set up group get-togethers and do far too many other things to list here. Charges for whatever digital content or services they buy simply show up on their phone bill -- no credit cards, no electronic wallet, no personal info, no fuss.
Ask AT&T Wireless reps about the "imode-like service" they're rolling out and they bristle a bit: "What we're doing is unique in the American marketplace and is not simply a transplantation of imode, slapping a different letter onto it and then just moving on from there," says spokesperson Mark Siegel. "The content is uniquely American, the approach is uniquely American."
But is it American enough? For many skeptics, imode-type services will never take off in the U.S, for one simple reason: the car. In Japan, the ubiquitous mass transit system is often cited as a primary reason for imode's success. The transit system creates a lifestyle full of "microniches" of time. There's a lot of hanging around nearby bus, subway and train stations, usually waiting for friends or for transport. Imode and its competitors have filled this otherwise empty space with well-received services and cutting-edge handsets -- handsets that cellphone aficionados like Matthew Hart drool over.
For cellular operators in the U.S., desperate to boost data revenues in the face of plummeting share prices, the need to get Americans using something like imode is acute. And notwithstanding America's car culture, if average Americans get their hands on Japan-level handsets, watch out. That, in fact, might be the best way to evaluate mMode -- not necessarily as a service for users, but as a beachhead for Japanese handset manufacturers.
Japan's domestic market is reaching saturation. The battle to get Americans to fall in love with wireless services over their cellphones has at least one very large treasure at stake: who gains the upper hand in handsets. Indeed, this spring could be looked back on as a turning point in the handset wars here and in Europe. Can Nokia be dethroned? Has Japan's time come again?
