Seeking a Drone Strategy

　For the first time in four years I visited the Sagrada Família. The church was under construction, just as it was four years ago. A Barcelona resident informed me that it would be completed in another 10 years. It seems that drones are being used to survey for the construction. Drones, please make yourselves useful.

　Prior to that, I participated in the Japan Drone Nationals held by TBS. Drone racing has become a new sport. I want to promote it as a superhuman sport for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The essence of drones is their fun side, not their usefulness.

　However, in December of 2015, the Aviation Law was revised, and restrictions were imposed on drones of 200 g or more.

　Drones are a form of IT that use radio waves. Generally speaking, they are composed of 3 points. 1. Device = terminal, 2. Network, 3. Service. I believe the economic potential is greater in the latter points.

　First, the device. China’s DJI, which introduced the Phantom in 2012, has 70% of the market share. On the other hand, for industrial purposes American-made drones are the best. When it comes to parts such as cameras, sensors, and batteries, Japanese-made products are popular. The situation is similar to that of smartphone terminals.

　As generalization and popularization continue to progress, we can expect to see drones become smaller and more precise, and toy versions to be made. At this year’s Tokyo Toy Show, drones claimed all of the 3 grand prizes. I have high expectations for Japanese manufacturers to shine.

　As IT, the network is more important. Currently I am using amateur wireless radio waves, but it is expected that 5G will be available after 2020.

　Japan has led the world in the development of 3G and 4G infrastructure for mobile phones, but it never showed a competitive edge. Why not take the lead with 5G infrastructure development, and demonstrate the competitive advantage of drones?

　NTT DoCoMo is starting a demonstration experiment of drones using the cellular phone network. Conventional drones could only fly a few hundred meters, but soon they will be able to fly for more than 2 km. They will be used for crop dusting and farmland management.

　To do this, reform of the Radio Law is required. What the government should do is deregulation that paves the way for this. While waiting for the results of the demonstration, we will fall behind.

　I’m interested in what’s going on in the US. NASA is cooperating with telecommunications companies such as Verizon to develop UTM for a drone air traffic control system. It will be a cloud system that controls traffic unmanned.

　This system uses mobile phone base stations to connect with tens of thousands of drones at the same time, and is expected to be operated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA.) This is a national strategy of holding an operating system.

I haven’t heard any talk about JAXA cooperating with DoCoMo or au to make a system that will be operated by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. It seems as though Japan is lagging behind. The platform will be seized, provoking a feeling of déjà vu. Before regulatory theory, let's work on strategic theory.

　The most important thing is service. Shooting from a high position, crop dusting, security, surveying, infrastructure inspections, disaster investigation, and cargo transportation. The range of potential uses is vast. Industry and culture will determine how this will spread.

　I want the Japanese government to deregulate drone use ahead of the rest of the world, and to make it into a developed country that uses drones. And I ask that the government itself make thorough use of drones in advance of public works and disaster prevention, etc.

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White Paper on Telecommunications Questions Companies’ ICT Response

　The white paper on telecommunications turned a sharp eye on corporate response.

　ICT investment by Japanese companies has turned into a situation of 'defensive ICT investment' aimed at realizing operational efficiency and reducing costs.

　US companies analyzed their ICT products and services and found that they are leaders due to their ‘defensive ICT investment’ strategy aimed at strengthening ICT product and service development, and reforming the ICT business model.

　Japanese corporate investment in ICT/GDP is lower than that of the United States, the UK, etc., and it will decline even further during the recession, but there are also survey results that show that the US and the UK invest more during times of recession. In the past 10 years, one reason why the competitiveness of Japanese companies didn’t increase was the low understanding of ICT in corporate management.

　The use of IoT was also analyzed.

　The IoT progress index that shows the state of Japanese use of the IoT is low. Although Japan's communication infrastructure index is at the highest level, the IoT progress index is inferior to that of the United States, China, Germany, and the UK. In other words, even though it is available, it is not being used. This is also a problem of corporate management.

　Japanese firms also have relatively low projections for market expansion using IoT. From 2015 to 2020, the rate of adoption of IoT in most countries is expected to increase 2 to 3 times, but Japan has little intention to introduce IoT, and there is a danger that a gap will open up between Japan and other countries in the future.

　The use of AI was also analyzed.

　In Japan's workplaces, many people say they are not doing anything to respond to or prepare for AI. In the United States, many acquire knowledge and skills of AI, such as learning from the AI side, in anticipation of continuing in their present job.

　However, there is another way of looking at it.

　Resistance to the introduction of AI into one’s workplace and resistance to AI as a work partner tends to be lower for Japanese workers than for American ones. This may be a sign that the spread of AI into the workplace is happening more smoothly in Japan.

　Overall, whether it is ICT or IoT, the awareness of Japanese corporate management is low, which is likely to affect competitiveness. This is an extension of the fact that the white paper has long pointed out that the issue of ICT in Japan is the use of corporate management. It’s a problem for the CEO.

　The infrastructure providers and the users of ICT such as general consumers and young people are cool, but there is a problem with corporate use. The usage policy for both IoT and AI should be expanded if they depict a growth strategy such as Industry 4.0.

　Rather than subsidizing the development side, governments should stimulate the user side with the tax system. The government should lead the way for business by becoming a strong consumer and introducing IoT and AI. I can suggest such a policy.

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White Paper on Telecommunications Challenges ICT Surplus Analysis

　The White Paper on Telecommunications. I worked on the editing committee.

　http://www.soumu.go.jp/menu_news/s-news/01tsushin02_02000101.html

　The impact of the growth of the ICT sector is expected to have an upward pressure effect that will result in a real GDP of 33.1 trillion yen in 2020.

　And this white paper was a special version dealing with IoT, big data, and AI. I have extracted some points from it.

　One of the challenges is the ICT consumer surplus analysis.

　“The Second Machine Age” by MIT Sloan’s McAfee and Brynjolfsson points out the “limits of GDP,” as GDP includes production and industrial output, but doesn’t grasp the full value of ICT. It poses the question of how to measure the consumer surplus that gives rise to new products and services.

　I was already aware of this question, but I do not know of an example of successful creation of that index. This time, the white paper dealt resolutely with this matter.

　

　It says, "Although the value of ICT is held by both the company side and the consumer side, while in the end an increase in GDP can be seen in the existing statistics for the company side, the consumer side is not fully captured by these statistics. The analysis covered 1. the consumer surplus, 2. the saving of time, and 3. a focus on information assets.

1. Regarding the consumer surplus (the difference between how much consumers think they should pay for an item and how much they actually pay), an example analysis of a music and video service shows that consumers have a surplus of 150 to 200 yen per month. If we then estimate the annual consumer surplus amount, the total is about 109.7 billion yen.

2. Regarding the saving of time, an analysis of Internet shopping shows that around 40 minutes to 1 hour of time is saved for each time.

3. Regarding information assets (reviews), an analysis of Internet shopping shows that more than 80% of users have had the experience of deciding which product to buy based on reviews.

　I assume the consumer surplus is actually much bigger, but first I want to acknowledge that this subject was dealt with at all. I believe that deepening this analysis and improving its accuracy will be a global contribution.

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