The Olympics Games : The catalyst of 5G change
The first steps towards 5G was the development of a five-year plan to 2020. This included making 5G available during the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo as a demonstration of the country’s technology leadership before a global audience.
The plan included funding six tests through the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications covering different fields, including security, entertainment, e-health, transport, building and logistics. The results are expected by early 2020.
The government also gathered Japanese industries under the Fifth Generation Communication Forum with the mission to increase R&D, identify technology issues and promote partnerships and joint industrial ventures.
Japan, together with its leading Japanese companies, also actively participated in developing international standards for 5G. Influencing the international technology standards could strongly benefit Japanese companies as they would be able to push their own technologies, or at least stay ahead of the game by developing new technologies that meet the set standards.
Government support operators by allocating the frequencies for free
A quick development of the 5G network was key in order for Japan to strongly support operators in creating a partnership and sharing the costs of network development. This message was evidently heard loud and clearl as operators developed their networks in collaborative pairs and shared the needed capital expenditure.
In other clear messages the government sent out in support of the 5G technology was the authorisation for operators to install 5G antennas on more than 200,000 traffic lights. This was to prevent any slowdowns even in most crowded, urban areas.
In addition to that, the government sent an important signal to the industry and the world in April 2019, by allocating 5G frequencies to its four main Japanese operators for free. As a comparison, Germany collected more than USD seven billion during the first phase of the 5G frequencies auction.
Actually, the Japanese government did not exactly allocate it for free but gave it in exchange of a list of commitments, including coverage obligations, security commitment and a total investment of USD 14.4 billion before the end of 2024.
By refusing to organise an auction for the frequencies, Japan has actually directly transferred the budget to the actual development of the 5G networks through the telecom companies’ investment commitments.
Vital moves to support the industry
The ban of Huawei by the US government was the perfect opportunity for Japan to push and support its own industry. The government quickly followed the US decision and banned Chinese brands such as Huawei and ZTE from any public bidding.
As a consequence, the three main mobile carriers banned Huawei from their 5G rollout.
It also made it impossible for the operators to work with them for the development of the 5G network. Actually, the decision was more political, as there is only one Japanese operator that is working with Huawei but they have already planned to replace the company with Ericsson.
Thanks to the government efforts, Japan became a 5G leader with the Japanese operators planning to release their first 5G offers by the end of 2019 or at the latest, by early 2020.