NCC Anniversary speech

Yoshio Utsumi

 

1 Greeting

It is a great honor for me to be here with you to celebrate the third anniversary of the establishment of NCC.

 

2 Appraisal of NCC

 

It is commonly believed that in the age of convergence of technologies and services, the regulatory body should deals with both telecommunications and broadcasting to provide opium results.

 

It is also believed that a regulatory commission, not a governmental department, but a commission independent from political entities, is the best organization as a regulator of contents.

 

And it is very natural  that a regulatory body whose mandates are both on physical media and their contents is most effective.

 

Therefore, a regulatory commission of this type as a regulator of ICT services has been widely established in many countries, but it is very rare in Asia.

 

The establishment of NCC three years ago here in Taiwan was a pioneering event and Taiwan leads other Asian countries in this field.

 

I congratulate you on this occasion of the third anniversary of the NCC.

 

It is worth to note that, many Asian policy makers and scholars closely watch NCC with high expectation. Now is the time that the Commission shows its excellent policymaking and adjudicatory decisions.  Taiwan ICT industry must lead others not only in the production of equipment but also in the contents production and broadcasting programs guided by the excellent policies and regulations by NCC.

 

3 Taiwanfs success in ICT industry

Taiwanfs great success in ICT industry, especially manufacturing, may be the result of your hard working, but to most, it is a miracle.

 

You have geopolitical disadvantages of isolated islands from the continent, you were not a big economical power, did not have advanced technologies, and you had considerable international political situations. Despite these disadvantageous conditions, you have led the world in ICTs.

 

Almost all electronic gadgets I am using in Japan are marked with gmade in Taiwanh. Although I bought one of the most advanced digital TV sets from a well-known Japanese manufacturer, it was in fact gmade in Taiwanh and in these days, it is very common to see gmade in Taiwanh products in Japan. More advanced and more sophisticated products are, most likely made in Taiwan.

 

Recently I have encountered a happy dilemma by a typhoon brought by the Taiwan ICT industry. I started a voluntary movement to send used PCs to the youth of developing countries two years ago. The starters could easily use PCs that were disposed of in the earlier days. I cannot forget the smiles of young people in developing world who touched PC keyboards for the first time in their life. Used PCs donated by good will are of course free of charge, but it costs more than 40 thousands yen to refurbish and shipping.

 

Now Tokyo PC market is facing a strong turbulence caused by a Taiwan manufacturer. They have started to sell 20 or 30 thousand yen PCs. Japanese venders started to compete against the Taiwan vender. With brand new PCs of 20 thousand yen, my voluntary movement has become almost nonsense.  

 

Many Japanese venders do not manufacture PC by themselves but they are getting OEM supply from Taiwan manufacturers. I suspect that the PC price war in Tokyo is in fact a battle between Taiwanese manufacturers. 

 

You know better than I do how you have made this remarkable success in ICT industry in Taiwan. This is the result of hard working people, good education in engineering, long political stability, good governance and strategies of the Taiwan government, very efficient and effective small and medium size enterprises, good industrial relationship, good investment environment both in Taiwan and in mainland China. All of these factors made it possible for you to be the number one in ICT industries in the world.

 

I had very good next-door neighbours when I was in Geneva. We often visited each other. They are a couple of Suisse man and Taiwanese woman. Both of them are professors in behavioral science and enjoying scholar life.

 

I wondered how she could afford to have very high education and long unpaid research activities in the States and Europe. Who did support her? I leaned later that her family owns electronic factories in Taiwan. My queries were answered immediately. She was from a rich family.   Her academic life was a grace of Taiwan ICT industries.

 

I sincerely hope this prosperity lasts forever.

 

4 Lessons from Japanfs failure

Japan had been also successful in electronic industry until early 90s. However, the decline of the industry started with the rise of Asian economies. The present Japanese situation is miserable.

 

There are many causes for the falling of the Japanese ICT industries.

 

Japan with the population of one hundred 20 million has a large enough market for an industry to survive in, which made them be satisfied with the domestic demand and did not provide incentives for them to go abroad.

 

The conventional carrier, NTT was strong enough to control venders through its procurement power and research and development activities. NTT had strong research and development abilities and developed its own technologies. They did not take international standards. Therefore, Japanese venders who manufactured NTT standard equipment had to manufacture different standard goods for the global market.

 

The Japanese users generally demanded highly sophisticated expensive equipment that could not penetrate the world market where inexpensive equipment was preferred. Even where global standards were adopted, they developed sophisticated equipment, which is not used in the world. Thus, Japan has become a gGalapagos islandsh where species are developed isolated from the world.

 

These are the commonly believed causes why the Japanese industry lost it competitiveness.

 

In my opinion, it is only an excuse by those concerned. Of course, these factors were apparently disadvantages for the industry. However, they are not fatal at all.

 

The probable reason is that Japanese were satisfied with a modest success in the domestic market, did not take risks to manufacture goods that could be sold in the world but had to compete with those of competitive Asian followers. They only did business comfortably where there were no risks of failure.

 

Japan had been successful until Asian followers began to compete with her. Japanese are successful even today, where their technologies are superior to the followers in such a field as manufacturing of high tech devices.

 

You may call this phenomenon a victim of success. It is commonly found in successful companies, as a syndrome of successor disease.

 

Japanese were not rich lazy men 30 to 50 years ago. You saw workaholic Japanese businessmen everywhere in the world, even at remote corners of Africa. Now you are seeing Koreans and Chinese there. You are seeing Japanese only at lucrative secured markets, or you are seeing Japanese closing firms and going back to Japan.

 

It is very difficult to maintain a hunger sprit once you become rich.

   

The inner oriented, domesticated nature of Japanese magnified the problem.

 

To everyone, the home country is a sweet home, the most comfortable place to live in. You prefer to do business with your home county men if possible. Once you turn your eyes back to your comfortable home, you will lose the global perspectives and miss global trends.

 

Japan could not pursue the worldwide spread of GMS mobile and stuck to its own mobile standard. Japan could not anticipate the big change of wind in technologies from circuit switching systems to IP networks. Japan stuck to the development of FTHM and did not quickly adopt the easier ADSL technology in building broadband networks. These failures let the Japanese industry lose international competitiveness in a very short time.

 

The failures of the Japanese industry were not due to lack of technologies, lack of resources, or lack of efforts, but caused simply by the lack of understanding of global trends.

 

Japanese used to be parochial, not exposed to the international affairs. They were, by nature, isolated people, living in small islands surrounded by the ocean. However, they made efforts, went all over the world after the Meiji Restoration, modernization of Japan 120 years ago, and did business successfully. 

 

Now that the miraculous success of Japanese economy satisfied them, they returned back home and are sitting in a comfortable armchair recalling the past success stories. This is the phenomenon of rich men syndrome we see everywhere in the world.

 

5 Information Society and citizensf participation

A few years ago, ITU led UN agencies in organizing the World Summit on the Information Society, WSIS, and as you know, I was the Secretary General of the Summit.

 

In 2003, heads of state, world business leaders, representatives from civil society , and the UN agencies, gathered in Geneva, declared their common desire and commitment to build a people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society. In that convention, it was agreed that everyone should be able to create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life.

 

While many developing countries are struggling to install the ICT infrastructure for their citizens to enjoy the benefits of the information society, many industrial countries have already acquired those means. Taiwan is one of them and you have no longer problems in this area.

 

For those of you who have acquired the tools, issues are how to make the best use of them.

 

Even a traditional ICT such as television broadcasting technology, which is very easy to use, has many educational, political and cultural issues when it comes to its usage. They are one of the most important areas of the NCC mandates and at the same time I am afraid they are the causes of headaches of NCC Commissioners.

 

They are not the concerns of manufactures but of politicians, of educators, of broadcasters and above of all Taiwanfs people.

 

Here the question is how to balance fundamental human rights of freedom of expression and public interests.

 

Public interests are strange creatures and there is no definition by law. They are capricious and change their appearance from time to time. They are in fact views and opinions of listeners and watchers; they are voices of the public. However, often they do not speak out and the voices are unheard. Besides that, the public often make mistakes.

 

That is the origin of headaches of Commissioners.

 

We have more than 5 decades of experience in TV broadcasting, and everyone know what TV is. Nevertheless, we are facing everyday new problems to cope with.

 

You can now broadcast TV signals through the Internet and the Internet is going to have exactly the same power as traditional TV broadcasting.

 

The Internet is more than that. You can get any information imaginable through it. You can open a store in the Internet. You can even create an electronic currency over the Internet. In addition, the internet is now creating another world, called gcyber spaceh, independent from the real world.

 

Two years ago when I returned back home after finishing the mandate as the secretary general of ITU, I found many guide books in Tokyo book stores seemed to be targeted at me. Their title included a phrase ghow to spend the second lifeh. I thought that the aging speed of Japanese society was so high that these guidebooks for retired persons were the best sellers in Japan. I bought one for me. To my surprise, it was a guidebook to make access to a cyber space called gthe second lifeh

 

No one knows the real power of the Internet yet.

 

The Commissioners irritated today by delicate problems concerning TV broadcasting, will be greatly bothered tomorrow by many unforeseen problems related to the Internet.

 

The real participation of citizens through the guarantee of the freedom of expression is a prerequisite for the healthy development of the information society.

 

At the WSIS the world leaders reaffirmed it repeatedly.

 

Quote gWe reaffirm, as an essential foundation of the Information Society, and as outlined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; that this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Communication is a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the foundation of all social organization. It is central to the Information Society. Everyone everywhere should have the opportunity to participate and no one should be excluded from the benefits the Information Society offers.h Unquote.

 

6 Broadcasting regulation in the age of the Internet

TV broadcasting is regulated all over the world. It is because it uses radio waves which are limited. Anyone who dominates the limited natural resources must have responsibilities to use them in public interests.

 

However, as technologies continue to develop, TV broadcasting does not necessarily use the limited resources and anyone can operate a broadcasting station soon through the Internet.

 

Then, there will be no ground for the regulation of broadcasting. The control of contents will be no longer necessary except something related with crimes.

 

The NCC mandate related to the contents will be more of supporting creation of contents through means such as tax incentives, governmental aids, and provisions of production facilities.

 

Japan is one of the most democratic and free nations in the world. There is no control of broadcasting contents by the government. Broadcasters are fully enjoying the freedom to broadcast whatever programs they produce.

 

Everybody is complaining the level of commercial TV broadcasting in Japan, while appreciating NHK `s broadcast programmes. Recently, however, due to scandals of its staff members, many listeners refused to pay the receiving fees to NHK.

 

NHKfs terrestrial broadcasting receiving fees are neither tax nor mandatory obligation. Law only describes that the listeners have to pay, but it does not provide NHK or the Government with power of coercion.

 

NHK did not like a payment by the coercion of the authorities. It feared that NHK would be controlled by the government and might lose the freedom of expression if the authorities had this power.

 

What happened after the payment refusal movement?

 

NHK was so concerned about audience rating, fearing the increase of the refusal of payment. What happened was that the broadcasting programs became flattering to the public and its high-level programs which had not enjoyed high audience rate changed to more popular and lowbrow ones.

 

Many critics are now questioning the quality of NHK program.

 

However, it is not the case with the compulsory pay TV of NHK.  NHK satellite broadcasting receiving fees are compulsory. Only audience who has paid can see full screen.

Even hard critics appreciate the quality of NHK satellite broadcasting, and the audience is gradually increasing despite the scandals. 

 

Whether you introduce a compulsory receiving fee or not has influenced program contents in great deal in Japan. How do you feel about Taiwanese situation?

 

I think NCCfs duties in the age of information society will be to deal with issues of this type. They are issues concerning conditions or frameworks in which information technologies are used.

 

7 NCC and its challenges

NCC will have many new challenges ahead.

It is the first independent regulatory commission for ICTs in Asia. Many policy makers in Asia are closely to monitor you with high expectation.

 

gIn public interestsh, the guiding principle of independent regulatory commission is difficult to define. It is the public itself, and the NCC is a servant for the public. The servant deals with the information and communication of the boss. The behavior of servant really shapes the boss. 

 

I wish you a very successful NCC.

 

 

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