CANNES, France — While most wireless carrier and mobile phone vendors attending the 3GSM World Congress here tiptoed around the "dark side" of a mass culture in which cellphones are seemingly ubiquitous, Japan's NTT DoCoMo is attempting to confront the profound social impact of these omnipresent devices.
In a "fireside chat" during Tuesday's (Feb. 15) keynote session, NTT DoCoMo President Masao Nakamura cited the Mobile Social Research Institute, founded last year by his company, as a pioneer in measuring and ameliorating the implications for Japanese society of a population in which 85 million (out of 120 million) depend heavily on mobile telephony.
Citing the myriad forms of mobile phone misuse — ranging from bad subway etiquette to the exploitation of prepaid mobiles in criminal, or terrorist, conspiracies — Nakamura said, "Operators shouldn't escape this issue by just laying the blame on society."
He added, "We are concerned that, if we don't face these issues squarely and try to solve them one by one, we are the ones who will bear the blame."
Expanding on Nakamura's remarks, NTT DoCoMo spokeswoman Tomoko Homma said mobile phone users who talk too loud represent only the starting point for the Mobile Social Research Institute, whose purpose is "research and development into the impact of mobile communications on human life."
Among the gravest issues NTT DoCoMo social scientists are exploring is the use of prepaid phones by criminals. NTT DoCoMo has responded by requiring a form of "registration" for all phone buyers, so that no phone can be used in complete anonymity. The company is encouraging other Japanese operators to follow suit.
A new crime in Japan, inspired by mobile telephony, is the use of camera phones for "book piracy" — the photographing of entire books inside bookstores. Photo voyeurism, a longstanding problem in Japan, has been abetted by the convenience and concealment of mobile camera phones.
Homma also cited the threat of spam over mobile e-mail as an emerging issue for study.
Nakamura, the NTT DoCoMo CEO, also mentioned response to natural disasters as another key concern for his company's social research group. During the Kobe earthquake in Japan a decade ago, mobile phones saved countless lives by replacing a system of fixed-line telecommunication that had been destroyed. In the 2004 Niigata quake, mobile telephony turned out to be a more mixed blessing.
Moments after the quake, Homma said she e-mailed her parents, who live in Niigata Prefecture, on her mobile phone, and got an almost immediate response. "I felt so secure," she said, "to know so quickly that my mom was OK."
However, with 85 million mobile phone users in Japan, almost all of them reaching out to Niigata at the same time, said Homma, "Within an hour, the network was jammed."
Nakamura said earthquake gridlock, or post-tsunami overload, represent the sort of problems that mobile operators cannot just accept. They bear a social responsibility to their customers to foresee such crises and prevent them.
