世論 What Japan Thinks

The provision of public wireless internet is Japan is pretty terrible. I’ve personally only tried a few times, but either I got no signal or I couldn’t get my hardware configured correctly. One place I’m very surprised that it’s not installed is on the Shinkansen, the Bullet Train. Their latest N700 series now has laptop power plugs on most of the seats, but sadly they chose not to include either wired or wireless internet connections even though mobile phone service is supported on even the older models of trains. So, recently japan.internet.com published the results of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc (part of the same group that operates the wireless-free Shinkansens) into public wireless LANs.

Demographics

On the 20th of September 2007 334 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel who were employed in either the public or the private sector completed an internet-based questionnaire. 84.1% of the sample was male, 13.2% in their twenties, 35.3% in their thirties, 37.1% in their forties, 12.6% in their fifties, and 1.8% in their sixties.

One other reason, perhaps, that there is not as strong a demand for wireless is that you can get high-speed mobile phone-based access from companies such as EMobile, with their offering of unlimited 3.6 Mbps at a fixed price of just 4,980 yen per month. I’m typing this up in a hotel in Los Angeles that has free wireless in all the rooms and all the public areas, yet when I stayed in a relatively posh hotel in central Osaka a couple of months ago I couldn’t get a signal at all, and there was no mention of wired or wireless service in the hotel information booklet.

Note that this survey covers services in all public areas from stations to hotels via restaurants and cafes. Deliberately leeching off a wide-open domestic router probably doesn’t count!
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japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into the use of public wireless LAN connections. On the 7th of January they interviewed 330 people employed in public or private enterprise. 80.3% of the sample was male, 15.8% in their twenties, 41.5% in their thirties, 30.3% in their forties, 10.0% in their fifties, and 2.4% in their sixties.

Note that in another survey last year, almost half of all interviewed used a wireless connection at home, so it isn’t a lack of awareness holding back people, although it could of course be a lack of portable machines, although since JR Tokai Express Research’s monitor base is heavily business-person oriented (it mainly advertises though, and awards points for discounts on, shinkansen bullet trains) one might expect there to be a high percentage of people with portable devices capable of accessing WiFi access points. Perhaps the full survey results analyse this aspect, and why almost three in five want to use public WiFi but haven’t yet.

I’m writing this whilst sitting in the biggest Freds Cafe (lovely bread, well worth a visit!) in Hankyuu Umeda station in Osaka, but there is absolutely no WiFi signal present according to NetStumbler. Anyone know about the availability of free (and legal!) WiFi in central Osaka? Apart from Starbucks, who I refuse to patronise, where else is there?
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