-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=Copyright 1993,4 Wired Ventures Ltd. All Rights Reserved=-=-=-=-= -=-=For complete copyright information, please see the end of this file=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= WIRED 2.02 Electrosphere ************* Wiring Japan ^^^^^^^^^^^^ In the first of an exclusive two-part series, WIRED's Japan correspondent reports from Tokyo on the bitter culture clash that has reduced Japan to a third-rate power in networking. By Bob Johnstone At precisely 8:00 on the evening of Friday, September 17, 1993, Japan's first commercial Internet packets flashed out of Tokyo and down Trans-Pacific Cable No. 4, bound for San Jose, California. A new era in Japanese networking had begun. As befits the birth of a new business, cheers went up and toasts were made. But not everybody was rejoicing in Tokyo that night - for Japan's first commercial Internet packets were sent by American engineers working for Japanese subsidiaries of the US corporations InterCon Systems and AT&T. InterCon's first customer was TWICS, Japan's first public access Internet provider, a small for-profit firm most of whose 400-odd subscribers are foreigners based in Japan. Across town, a group of Japanese Internet pioneers were grinding their teeth in frustration. The company they had set up to provide commercial Internet services had been denied a license to operate by Japan's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. Holding up the locals while waving on the foreigners is not the way business is usually done in Japan. Something odd is going on. That something, in essence, is the head-on collision of two cultures: The freewheeling, democratic style of the Internet has run smack into traditional Japan at its most authoritarian. On one side, you have the technology pioneers, young volunteers who built Japan's largest research network by their own efforts, without any support from the Japanese government. They are led by Jun Murai, the man some Americans (like Carl Malamud and Howard Rheingold) call the Internet samurai. On the other, you have the officials charged with providing network services to the Japanese research community. They have tried to ram unpopular standards and technolo-gy down users' throats - and failed. Their leader is Hiroshi Inose, arguably Japan's most powerful technocrat. The officials resent the pioneers' early successes and are waging a dirty-tricks campaign to try to regain the upper hand. Through their arrogant behavior, the pioneers have played into hands of their rivals, who are masters of the bureaucratic game. Today, the situation has degenerated into a highly emotional conflict, with each side hurling accusations and insults at the other. Little TWICS has been caught in the crossfire. In mid November, the company's long-standing domestic e-mail connection via Tokyo University was suddenly cut off, apparently in retaliation for TWICS having opted to use a non-Japanese Internet link. Then the company received an intimidating phone call from a man claiming to represent the computer center at Tokyo University. "Stop doing business in Japan!" the man shouted, "Shut down at once!" (TWICS has since been reconnected.) "It's one of the trickiest messes I've seen in years," comments Internet luminary David Farber, a University of Pennsylvania professor who tracks developments in Japan. It is also a mess that matters. For, as Farber points out, what the Japanese do affects the rest of us. And while Japan may be the world's second-largest economic power, the Japanese remain dangerously isolated. Networking has the power to change that by bringing Japan closer to the international community. But by the same token, failure to log on to the world's largest network could leave Japan more isolated than ever. The massive proliferation of the Internet has left the Japanese far behind. As of June 1993, Japan had roughly five networks for every 100 in the United States. Outbound NSFNet traffic from Japan that month was 42,000 Mbytes, roughly the same as that from Taiwan, a country with one sixth Japan's population, and less than half that from Australia, the Pacific Rim's most aggressive network user. Young Japanese have heard about the Internet and they are eager to get access to it. The irony is that the very people who should be encouraging them to log on are instead preventing them. The best way to reach Jun Murai, associate professor at Keio University, is, surprisingly, not by e-mail. Instead, you ask one of his acolytes to track him down for you. Initial contact with Murai - via his car phone - is encouraging: "You want to do [the interview] over a beer, or dinner, or what?" he asks. On meeting Murai, you quickly realize why he is so popular with his Internet counterparts elsewhere. In a country where most academics still wear suits, Murai wears an ancient sports shirt, a beer gut tumbling over his black jeans. He looks a bit like a bear, an impression his deep, rumbling voice reinforces. And while vagueness is regarded as a virtue in Japan, Murai comes straight to the point. Ten years ago, when Murai was just 28 years old, the Japanese research community was debating how to take advantage of deregulation to install communications networks. Discussion centered around which of the proposed Open Systems Interconnection architectures to adopt. To Murai, such meetings were a waste of time: "I was young, and that was boring," he says. "What I wanted was to have a network, to do actual operation and development, so that we could find out what the problems related to computers and communications were, then solve them." So he and some friends rolled up their sleeves and started laying cable. Their first effort was the immodestly titled JUNET, a dial-up modem service offered over public phone lines. It proved immediately popular with Japanese academics starved for e-mail, especially after Murai made it possible for them to enter text using Japanese characters. Encouraged, Murai went on to launch a more ambitious project in 1987, the Widely Interconnected Distributed Environment, or WIDE. A backbone network, WIDE is based on leased lines that interconnect local area networks. Owning leased lines is very expensive in Japan, and to pay for them, Murai turned to commercial firms like Sony and Canon. Once again, the network proved popular - today, it connects some 30 research institutes and 40 companies. WIDE also has a link, via the University of Hawaii, to NASA's Ames Research Center, through which Japanese researchers can communicate with their US counterparts. Indeed, WIDE became such a hit that Murai was forced to turn down requests for connections. A second headache was that companies were not necessarily confining their use of the network to research, as required under the Japanese government's extremely strict definition of appropriate use. An obvious solution to both problems was to set up a company to offer commercial Internet services. In December 1992, Murai and some of his students formed Internet Initiative Japan (IIJ). This is the company to which the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications refuses to grant an operating license. Jun Murai's success is a thorn in the flesh of Shoichiro Asano, a former Tokyo University professor who is in charge of day-to-day operations at Japan's National Center for Science Information Systems (NACSIS). This organization was formed to provide network information services for university researchers. As an official organization, supported by Japan's Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture, the Center naturally opted to use officially sanctioned technology, notably the Open Systems Interconnection protocols, which were first proposed in the early 1980s. Trouble was, it took a lot longer than originally anticipated for the committees in charge of developing these protocols to come up with the goods, and even when they did, many found them cumbersome and needlessly complex. Meanwhile, back in the US, an ad hoc set of protocols known as TCP/IP was spreading like wildfire. Establishment engineers turned up their noses at these protocols, sniffing that they had been designed by young cowboys and were too sloppy for any self-respecting network to use. Maybe they were - and the protocol issue still divides the engineering com-munity with all the ferocity ofa religious schism - but by the beginning of this decade, TCP/IP had become the de facto standard for networking in most of the world. It now has an installed base three to five orders of magnitude larger than that of Open Systems Interconnection. In 1991, realizing that it had backed the wrong horse, NACSIS at last began to convert its network to support TCP/IP. By that time, however, WIDE was firmly established in the eyes of the Internet community as Japan's front-runner. That a lowly assistant professor and his rag-tag band of graduate students should have attained such status seems to have embittered Asano, a disheveled and shifty-looking individual in his early 50s. Mention Murai to him and he becomes animated. "For five years, Jun Murai has done dirty things to [the Center]," he complains. Many of these "dirty things" concern Internet Initiative Japan. For example, Asano accuses Murai of being its "shadow leader." (Japanese academics are not supposed to sully their hands through contacts with business.) He also charges that IIJ has attempted to use American pressure in various forms to force the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications to issue the group an operating license. None of this would matter much if it were just a case of sour grapes. Unfortunately, however, Asano has the backing of the director of NACSIS, Hiroshi Inose; that gives him the power to do Murai - and, by extension, the spread of Japanese networking - considerable harm. In a society that reveres seniority, the 67-year-old Inose is about as senior as you can get. Back around 1957, as a young electrical engineer consulting at Bell Laboratories, Inose won a basic patent on time division multiplexing, a key technology for combining several calls on the same line, one which all modern telecommunications switching systems use. This reflects a caliber of achievement that few Japanese academics can match. In later life, Inose became dean of Tokyo University's prestigious engineering school, taking up his current position as director of NACSIS upon his retirement from the university. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, an IEEE fellow, and has a string of other awards and prizes to his name. Prime among them is his designation by the Japanese government as a person of cultural merit, an honor carrying tremendous status in Japan. Today, Inose chairs many of the key policy committees at both the ministries of Trade and Industry, and Posts and Telecommunications. His former students hold senior positions at leading Japanese electronics firms. Indeed, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that few Japanese involved in information technology are not beholden to Inose in some way. Inose was not available to be interviewed for this article: His schedule was booked up for two months. But most people who have met him are struck by his charm and gentility. Hell, the man even writes poetry. But inside the velvet glove is an iron fist. Many Japanese criticize Inose for throwing his weight around, but few dare to do so openly. One of the few is technology journalist Yukihiro Furuse. In the November issue of the monthly magazine Shincho 45, Furuse writes that "probably no one can criticize [Inose] because he has absolute power and he is senior to everybody." Furuse recognizes that networking is of crucial importance to Japan's future. And he is concerned that Inose's behind-the-scenes style is not the best way to promote its growth. One specific charge made by Furuse and others against Inose is that he has used his influence with the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications to prevent IIJ from getting an operating license. Another is that he leaned on the Ministry of Trade and Industry to prohibit a new computer research project it was supporting from using IIJ to provide network services. Why should Inose care about a bunch of young upstarts like Murai et al? "Professor Inose represents the old establishment," suggests one senior telecommunications executive, "and their idea is that government and national universities should always stay in the center, delivering and exchanging information." In the US, the acceptable-use policy for the Internet was designed to promote the growth of commercial Internet services. The Japanese acceptable-use policy seems by contrast aimed at preventing the growth of Internetworking beyond the ivory towers. David Farber, who has known Inose for many years, insists that his friend is acting purely in the national interest and for the benefit of the education community. Farber says that Inose is worried about IIJ's claims that it can provide network services for Japan's university researchers at an affordable price. In addition to rendering NACSIS superfluous, this could also lead to the education ministry cutting off much-needed financial support for networks. An IIJ spokesperson confirms that the company had planned to offer an academic discount plan but were told by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications that licensed carriers would not be allowed to discriminate between different types of customers. IIJ is currently providing customers with domestic network service, which it can do without a special license. "Inose believes that achieving a successful conclusion is a slow, careful process that keeps the support of the education ministry," Farber says. "He gets upset with the cowboy approach" taken by Jun Murai and his associates at IIJ. Inose is not the only one upset by IIJ's behavior. Some of the blame for the current conflict must also go to IIJ's manage-ment, and in particular, to the company's president and CEO, Hiroyuki Fukase. Fukase is an engineer by training, not a businessman. He has needlessly antagonized potential investors by asking for money, then neglecting to perform the follow-up visits that Japanese business etiquette demands. Worse, he has annoyed Hikaru Chono, director of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications' computer communications division and the official in charge of issuing the license IIJ needs to provide international Internet services. In Japan, it pays to treat bureaucrats with respect. They form, after all, an elite, and have dedicated themselves to serving their country, working long hours in overcrowded conditions for low pay. The quid pro quo is power. Visit a Japanese government office and you will see a constant stream of supplicants who come to beg for official favor. Chono is a prime example of the bureaucratic breed. A graduate of Tokyo University's law school, he has paid his dues - including a stint as Japan's representative at the CCITT (the international telephony committee) in Geneva, and a year as a postmaster in a remote part of northern Japan. He has been involved with telecommunications since 1975, and he is tired of it. In particular, he is fed up with Fukase. "IIJ is a very difficult company for me to understand," he sighs, "they've done lots of publicity and marketing, they've published their tariffs in journals and magazines, but they haven't finished the formalities." What Chono needs is a letter of guarantee from a financial backer. "If they complete all the necessary documents," he says, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications will issue a license "within 15 days, maximum." Fukase claims to have found a backer, the Industrial Bank of Japan, but accuses Chono of having warned the bank not to deliver the letter of guarantee. Such accusations are typical of Fukase's bull-in-a-china-shop style. In early 1993, he upset the ministry by arranging for a letter from a friend in the US National Science Foundation in support of IIJ's license application to be delivered via the US Embassy in Tokyo. Asano accuses IIJ of urging US equipment manufacturers to criticize the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications for preventing them from doing business in Japan. Such heavy-handed attempts to use US pressure to bully the ministry into granting a license have had an effect oppo-site to the one intended. The best thing that Fukase could do at this point would be to go see Chono and try to pour some oil on troubled waters. But Fukase has not been to Chono's office in months, while Asano reportedly visits him regularly. "They're naive guys," comments one observer of IIJ. "They don't know how to play the game in their own country." Murai would like to wash his hands of the conflict and get on with his research. "I don't want to deal with any of this," he groans, adding in frustration, "What's wrong with me? I'm providing a better environment [than NACSIS], producing researchers and good results, and the com-panies [that support WIDE] are very happy. The problem is," he concludes, "I'm too young to deal with this kind of thing." But much as he might like to, Murai cannot simply walk away from the mess that surrounds IIJ. Indeed, as Farber points out, much of the current problem stems from confusion over Murai's dual role as director of an academic research network and would-be godfather of a commercial Internet pro-vider. Carl Malamud, a friend of Murai and author of the technical travelog, Exploring the Internet, comments that "the real issue in Japan is the same as in the US. We're moving beyond the myth that the Internet is some academic research project." What then is to be done to sort things out? Nobody in Japan seems to know. One less-than-optimum solution is simply to let time take its course. Inose is expected to retire in a couple of years. Following his master's departure, Asano says he will probably return to academic life. Well before then, IIJ will likely bring in new management to run its business, leaving Murai to get on with his research. For the moment, however, though a new era has begun, precious time is being lost. And it is time that Japan can ill afford to lose. ******* SIDEBAR ******* Reasons for Japan's Late Start >> Dominance of centralized, mainframe-based computing >> Lack of LANs >> Proprietary protocols >> TCP/IP ignored while government and industry pursued OSI >> Lack of Japanese software and support for routers >> Over-regulation >> Difficulty of Japanese text entry >> Japan a small country dominated by Tokyo >> Overpriced leased lines What's Needed for Japan's Catch-Up >> More support, especially financial, from government and industry >> Better-educated bureaucrats >> More coordination between existing networks >> Elimination of barriers imposed by government between academics and industry >> More free-access systems >> More applications software >> Faster links >> Lower tariffs >> More researchers >> More links with other Asian countries * * * =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=WIRED Online Copyright Notice=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Copyright 1993,4 Ventures USA Ltd. All rights reserved. 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