Tuesday, March 19, 2002
NTT DoCoMo has done it again. While the rest of the world dreams of 3G (broadband wireless) becoming reality sometime in the next 2 to 3 years, NTT DoCoMo is rolling it out all across Japan. Now they're thinking about the NEXT big thing, 4G, which according to the referenced article, "would allow downloads at more than 100 megabits per second." That's about 66 time the speed of DSL. If it becomes a reality, it might prove a competitor to wired alternatives.
As I've pointed out in the past and will point out again, NTT stands for Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, Japan's monopoly telephone provider. The Japanese have done a lot of stupid things, among them placing members of government in charge of Japan's major banks, which has lead inexorably towards their impending insolvency (absent a bailout by the Japanese government which would make the American Savings and Loan scandal look like a frat party that got out of hand). They DID NOT break up NTT, however.
The thing that distinguishes poor nations from rich nations is they trust individuals to make rational choices. The Japanese government built a telephone monopoly. The proper response to that situation is NOT to require government to "fix" their mistake. If a wool blanket is causing your skin to chafe, the solution isn't to replace it with another wool blanket (okay, bad analogy, but I can't think of a better one right now). The solution is to let consumers and potential suppliers, who are infinitely more knowledgeable than government bureaucrats about market conditions, make their own choices. Government needs simply to STOP what they are doing.
Let the market sort it out.
As I've pointed out in the past and will point out again, NTT stands for Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, Japan's monopoly telephone provider. The Japanese have done a lot of stupid things, among them placing members of government in charge of Japan's major banks, which has lead inexorably towards their impending insolvency (absent a bailout by the Japanese government which would make the American Savings and Loan scandal look like a frat party that got out of hand). They DID NOT break up NTT, however.
The thing that distinguishes poor nations from rich nations is they trust individuals to make rational choices. The Japanese government built a telephone monopoly. The proper response to that situation is NOT to require government to "fix" their mistake. If a wool blanket is causing your skin to chafe, the solution isn't to replace it with another wool blanket (okay, bad analogy, but I can't think of a better one right now). The solution is to let consumers and potential suppliers, who are infinitely more knowledgeable than government bureaucrats about market conditions, make their own choices. Government needs simply to STOP what they are doing.
Let the market sort it out.
