Viewpoint: Location-based Services
Written by Arjen van Blokland; edited by the J@pan Inc staff (editors@japaninc.com)
Starting in April 2007, the Japanese Government requires that all new third-generation mobile phones support position notification functionality using GPS. The latest 3G-models of the three carriers indeed all come with GPS.
Time to take a look what location-based services are offered.
Back in the nineties, car navigation units were already a best seller in Japan. Graphical 3D color maps were already popular in Japan when European and American marketers were still of the opinion that their consumers were only interested in voice navigation and simple maps with arrows and street names. Like all major electronics makers, the Japanese have missed the recent navigation boom in Europe and the US where TomTom and Garmin have grasped a major share of the market with technologies that were widely available in Japan eight years ago. These technologies are now available in Japanese mobile phones - the latest KDDI/AU models even offer 3D color maps with GPS navigation.
KDDI/AU has the most advanced location-based services offering. Its service is called EZ Naviwalk. With Naviwalk maps can be searched using keywords and phone numbers. Local weather information and timetables for your location can be easily retrieved. You can set your own spots and find the shortest route with a mixture of walking, train and public transport. Duogate, KDDI/AU’s PC web portal offers these services as well. Car navigation-like services to find routes are free of charge. The other services cost 210 yen per month and to have access to real time traffic and public transport information costs an additional 105 yen.
Salesmen can enter the addresses of their customers to visit during the day in Duogate to calculate and register the most efficient route with travel instructions and access these during the days from their mobile phone. KDDI also offers parents a service to trace the location of their children that have a GPS-enabled phone.
DoCoMo originally used cell-based navigation called iArea.
The accuracy was less than with GPS. Forced by the Government, the 903i-series of DoCoMo now feature GPS, like the latest Softbank phones.
Successful location-based services providers are mobile venture Navitime and mapmaker Zenrin that offers fancy service that mixes real images of the location, 3D and 2D maps. HitachiSoft, a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) provider, will extend its Geomation services to DoCoMo and KDDI/AU starting March. GeoMation is presently used in the management of electricity, water and gas facilities using its map-based system. With the mobile extension, sales and product transportation will be supported to its customers in areas such as disaster prevention, disaster measures, and insurance-finance-property transactions. The software is priced at 714,000 yen per month for 100 users.
Although one might argue that due to the non-existence of street names, location-based services making use of extensive graphics might only be successful in Japan. Did we not hear the same from the Western marketers ten years ago?
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