Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: jimmy@icjapan.info.com (Jim Gottlieb) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: AT&T Behind Blocking of Japanese Business Phone Systems? Message-ID: <4221@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 22 Feb 90 11:26:09 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: Jim Gottlieb Organization: Info Connections, Tokyo, Japan Lines: 83 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 119, message 2 of 9 In article <4043@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon writes: >Oh, and another thing. US companies having a hard time selling things >in Japan has less to do with the Japanese government regulations and >more to do with not making anything the Japanese consumer wants to buy >than you may realize. Where, for instance, Matsushita carefully sized >up the North American market when designing the KX-T series equipment, >most US firms put no effort into analyzing the Japanese market for >their goods. "Hey, if it's good enough for Americans...." Seeing Japanese key systems in the U.S., one might assume that they just send us the same models they sell at home (except for the KX people who are not allowed to sell at home). But after spending the last six months here in the telecom industry and using phones quite often, I see that this is clearly not the case. Most of the systems shipped to the U.S. are quite different from what is sold here at home. Following are the differences I have noticed: Key telephone sets in Japan allow the user to adjust the receive volume. This is actually quite handy when talking in very crowded, very noisy Japanese offices. This is done without raising sidetone volume. I have never seen a key system here with voice announce or paging capabilities. Again, this is probably due to the fact that a typical one-person office in the U.S. would have up to ten people in it here. The systems they export allow the connection of an external music-on-hold source. All systems here have IC-generated "Greensleeves" or "Home On The Range" with no ability to change this. Similarly, key system sets can be programmed to play melodies (again, public-domain ones) when the phone rings. Interestingly, the original KX-T616 came with Greensleeves, but also allowed one to substitute an external source. The MOH chip was eliminated in the 61610 upgrade. I have not yet seen a system here that will let the user generate touch-tones of user-desired length. Key systems here do not allow the user to conference two outside lines. And until very recently, they did not include the ability to flash the outside trunks. Domestic-use systems look for a reversal on outside trunks to indicate supervision. This then starts a timer on the display. Many systems can also be equipped with a rate chip, which allows the cost of the current call to be displayed. There is far too much use of pulse dialing on outside trunks due to NTT's ripoff touch-tone charges. Therefore, many people still use pulse and Japanese key systems reflect this in their ability to switch between 10 or 20 pulses-per-second. Most single-line sets here have a button one pushes to switch to tone-dialing in the middle of a call so that it is easy to dial out with pulse and then enter tones to an interactive service. The tone plant is different. In Japan, 400Hz tones are used for dial tone, busy, and ringing. Many internal dial tones here sound like a "reorder" (120ipm) to me. Here one dials "0" to access an outside line. The systems they ship to the U.S. use "9". On the other hand, the building we rent space in has shared-tenant service served off of a Mitsubishi Melstar, aka IBM ROLM 9751. The only changes they made for this market were the tone plant and dial "0" for outside. The sets are the same ones they use in the U.S. and have not been adapted at all to the Japanese market. They _do_ have a volume control for instance, but raising the receive volume also boosts the sidetone making it useless in a noisy room. The sets are the usual lousy-in-any-country ROLMphones. I _HATE_ them. I am embarrassed that we ship them such a monster. But that's another story. Or is it? Jim Gottlieb Info Connections, Tokyo, Japan _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ or or Fax: (011)+81-3-237-5867 Voice Mail: (011)+81-3-222-8429