There is a digital divide in Japan between urban and rural regions of Japan and the government is addressing it. A draft plan, outlining measures to make Broadband Internet and cell phones usable throughout the nation, has been outlined by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry. It will cost both the public and private sectors up to 1.2 trillion yen. A communications satellite will be used to make broadband Internet accessible to isolated regions and remote islands.
The good news is that although the ministry plans to set up antennas for receiving and then rebroadcast signals through fiber-optic cables, this will not be totally effective. To make for maximum effectiveness of this plan, the Ministry will revise laws and ordinances to allow citizens to set up, without a license, very small base stations capable of transmitting signals to basements and rooms without windows.
Two possibilities exist: to tap into the home-based stations’ business and secondly to hook up with communications firms who will get two-thirds of the cost of setting up the stations subsidized by the government.
Away from the hectic life of Tokyo and Osaka sits a tropical resort area called Okinawa. The island had some of the most severe and tragic battles in the Second World War and, until recently, were dependent on the U.S. military and tourism to provide the bulk of jobs and opportunity. All of that has changed.
Okinawa is emerging as the IT capital of Japan, with more than 100 financial and information-related businesses having set up offices in the prefecture. Leading the way are Japan superpowers, NTT and Nomura Securities. Many overseas call centers which chose China or India for their default operations are packing their bags and finding their way to Okinawa Prefecture.
Okinawa has been coaxing companies to come to the island by offering them several incentives. For example, 30 percent of their young employees’ salaries are subsidized by the Japanese government. The Okinawa government also covers 80 percent of companies’ telecommunications expenses. These measures have helped increase the number of call centers on the island from three in March 1999 to 21 today, producing more than 3,500 jobs.
Downtown Nago is seeing rapid development, condominiums rising and businesses and shopping areas to accommodate the boom.
The allure of Okinawa began when the city of Nago in the prefecture was designated a special financial business zone. Moreover, the government has given Nago hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for accepting the relocation of American military bases.
This means everything from ethnic restaurants to translation schools will be blossoming in the coming years. Okinawa Prefecture has the highest unemployment rate among youth in Japan at over 13 percent, so one of the incentives given by the Japanese government is a huge tax break to firms hiring twenty or more locals. A detailed article can be found by CLICKING HERE
Twitter
Facebook