Japanese groups seeks common Net platform for consumer electronics
By Yoshiko Hara
EE Times
February 10, 2004 (4:11 p.m. ET)
TOKYO — In a bid to establish a common platform for Internet accessibility for home electronics, 14 Japanese companies are launching the "Ubiquitous Open Platform Forum" that will seek to complete a spec by April.
Member of the initiative include telecommunications carriers, electronics manufacturers and information service providers. Joining the group are: NTT Communications Corp., which proposed the forum; KDDI Corp., NTT main rival; electronics manufacturers Hitachi, Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., Matsushita Electric Works Ltd., NEC Corp., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Pioneer Corp., Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd., Sharp Corp., Sony Corp., Sony Communications Network Corp. and Toshiba Corp.; and Nifty Corp., one of Japan's largest ISPs.
The forum will also seek participants from outside Japan.
The forum's main goal is to provide generic Internet access for digital consumer electronics and electric home appliances. Some companies already offer Internet access for their products through a specific ISP. The forum will seek to break from corporate boundaries to provide a common platform upon which consumers can more easily access networks.
The initiative also aims to create new services and markets — akin to cellphones based on Japan's i-mode service — by combining the resources of consumer electronics manufacturers, carriers and contents providers. The forum also expects to lower the cost of building broadband networks in Japan.
Initially, the focus will be on developing a common platform rather than technology development, organizers said. "First, UOPF will work on technologies that realize the common platform based on the present IPv4. Then the forum will also consider the use of IPv6-based services," said Hisao Iizuka, executive manager of the Innovative IP Architecture Center of NTT Communications.
The forum plans to complete the first version of the platform specification in April. The spec will facilitate easy, automated connection of home electronics devices to the Internet, secure online transactions and real-time data communications between home devices via the Internet.
Though details of the common platform were not disclosed, the forum's work is expected to focus on protocols and ID and password management, and won't involve operating systems and browsers. Satoshi Ishiyama, vice president of NTT Communications' planning department, who heads the forum office, said common platform functions may be implemented either as software or hardware in each device.
The forum expects products complying with the emerging spec will hit the Japanese market by this fall.
