 operated in Japan. NTT Docomo was the largest and served some 55% of the market using a home-grown 2G technology (PDC) and a global 3G technology (WCDMA). The second largest was KDDI which had a market share of around 25% and used a 2G/3G technology (cdma- One/CDMA 2000). Third was Vodafone Japan who served some 20% of the market using the same technologies as those of NTT Docomo. Finally, the smallest was DDI Pocket, a subsidiary of KDDI who had a market share of some 10% and used another home-grown technology (PHS). The main policy goals of the Japanese government appeared to be promoting popular wireless access to internet and reduce the subscription costs which at the time were Technology, Business and Policy among the highest in the world. One way to achieve these was to increase competition in the mobile telecommunications markets. As a result the government policy barred the three incumbent players, Docomo, KDDI and Vodafone, from participating in the spectrum acquisition process. As a result, three smaller candidates applied: one was eAccess, a suc- cessful ADSL operator with revenues of $270 million and profits of $22 million, who proposed to use a proprietary technology developed by Navini Networks [18]. Another was DDI Pocket, who had revenues of $1.8 billion and profits of $210 million. DDI Pocket proposed to use a proprietary system based on an evolution of its PHS technology. The third was IPMobile, a start-up company consisting of 5 engineers, a few advisers (including the author as the interim CTO), a capitalization of $1 million, no revenue and no opera- tional background. IPMobile proposed to use a 3G global standard called TD-CDMA. A fourth company, Softbank, a major ISP with revenues of $4.5 billion expressed interest to participate in the process with an eye to bid later using a winning technology. Over the following 2 years a thorough analysis was carried out through a 'shingikai' - deliberation council - under the auspices of the MIC. The interested parties made sub- missions on the streng