Japanese cellular carriers to throttle new year calls

In what is fast becoming as much a part of the new year in Japan as a visit to a local shrine or the sending of nengajyo -- new year postcards -- to friends and acquaintances, Japan's three major cellular operators will again throttle the ability of users to make calls in the first hours of 2003.

The carriers are planning to block up to seven out of every eight attempted calls to prevent their networks becoming overloaded as the new year begins, they said Wednesday. Visiting a shrine at midnight on New Year's Eve is a popular activity in Japan and so millions of people pull out their cellular telephones to call or e-mail their friends with congratulatory messages.

The most severe restrictions stand to be placed by NTT DoCoMo Inc., which with 42.5 million subscribers has a 58 percent market share. Depending on call volumes, the carrier plans to allow as few as one in eight calls to be placed during the first two hours of 2003. In an attempt to reduce the load, the company is also planning to run television commercials on Dec. 31 advising people that they may have problems and should wait a little before attempting to dial or send e-mail again.

Au, the cellular unit of KDDI Corp., said it plans to block up to 80 percent of attempted calls and e-mails depending on network traffic and J-Phone Co. Ltd., the Japanese unit of Vodafone Group PLC, says it will allow between 25 percent and 50 percent of calls to go through for the period from 11:55pm on Dec. 31 to 1am on Jan. 1.

Escaping the blocks will be the handful of users subscribed to Japan's 3G networks. Both NTT DoCoMo and J-Phone operate WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) networks although the low numbers of subscribers mean ample bandwidth to handle what calls will be made.

The problem of new year phone calls and e-mails first surfaced in new year 2000, when some people initially mistook the inability to make a call as an occurrence of the Y2K bug. At that time carriers did not have any formal blocking in place however the two subsequent new year periods have seen them control the number of calls. As the number of cellular users grows, the problem is getting worse. Au placed limits on 67 percent of calls in the last two years however raised the bar this year.

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