Japan-based telecom carrier NTT DoCoMo began establishing Uchisuma (smart family) experience zone in its stores and distributors' stores on October 16, 2015, looking to help consumers see the convenience brought by high speed Internet combined with network-supported home appliances. The telecom carrier is pushing cheap prices for the combination of fixed and mobile networks to attract demand from home users, and such a demand is growing to become a potential business opportunity, Digitimes Research's latest report about Japan's smart family market shows.
DoCoMo launched DoCoMo Hikari network service, which combines NTT East and West's optical fiber fixed network with mobile networks in March 2015. The service provides friendly pricing to attract home users, and the company started pushing the Uchisuma experience zone half of a year later to let consumers that mainly use handsets, understand the changes offered by optical fiber services, and is pushing a new business model that bundles fixed and mobile network services.
The Uchisuma's optical fiber network is able to transmit 1Gbps and showcases DoCoMo's in-house developed software/hardware applications such as d Market, family helper, Runtastic for Docomo fitness tracking, and surveillance services, as well as the OHaNas robot and the Sumakame for docomo CS-QR10-d surveillance system. In addition, NTT DoCoMo has also partnered with Sony and Philips Electronics Japan to develop smart lighting, wearable devices and home theater products that support the network.
d Market is a platform DoCoMo specifically designed for smartphones and tablets and reached 14.26 million users by January 2016. dTV, a video streaming service, is the most used service on the platform, and DoCoMo is looking to expand the service from mobile devices to living rooms via Uchisuma.
Although DoCoMo is not very familiar with the smart home market, the company is still expected to achieve strong results du to its large user base and range of services, Digitimes Research forecasts.
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