Commentary: Information and Telecommunications White Paper

■Commentary: Information and Telecommunications White Paper

The following is my commentary on the Information and Telecommunications White Paper.

This follows up on the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Information and Telecommunications White Paper advisors meeting.

I made three comments on this year's white paper.

1. First, two positives.

It suggested a positive interpretation, namely that the social changes due to COVID-19 are creating new value.

- It emphasized Japan's need to promote employment and quality of life improvements through ICT utilization (with telecommunications policy shifting from telecommunications industry expansion policy to one around telecommunications use itself).

2. Two areas we have not fully delved into:

- Informatization of government processes. This falls on the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

- Informatization of education. Since policy issues are transitioning from school to household informatization, it becomes perforce an issue of concern to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

COVID-19 and the Digital Agency are major topics that will likely continue to be talked about for some time, and these are future issues. In both cases, they are things the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the Information and Telecommunications White Paper will have to treat as things in which they have a vested interest.

3. Details on 5G.

5G is not yet realistic from a usage perspective, and is still at the stage of industry players sharing specific use cases.

So in that sense, the white paper's focus on that was good.

With 5G, IoT tends to be given pride of place, while businesses and lifestyles that make use of data are not talked about in a context that has the sense of reality people need. One issue is indicating to users the benefits of data utilization.

How will next year's Information and Telecommunications White Paper be formulated?

That's still a secret. I'll jot some notes down about it once it's out.

But the issue first on the table is COVID.

Moreover, how that has brought into sharper relief Japan's failure in the digital realm.

Just why did we fail to go digital? Did DX not go to plan?

I believe it's owed to the past successes of the Showa period.

Both education and the administration have lagged to take action since 2018.

Areas that experienced success in the past rested on their laurels and fell behind.

I hope the next white paper will provide a framework to debate that.

Will DX really go to plan post-COVID?

Recently, I saw some data stating that telecommuting dropped to 24% from 35% in April.

If we get through the pandemic successfully, I worry that we might feel a sense of security and go back to the days when we continued to be losers in the digital realm.

My thinking is that the next topics are going to be increasing digitalization and the hybrid approach taking root.