SoftBank World 2025 Exhibit Showcases Telecommunications History, and the Next Frontier

On July 16, 2025, SoftBank Corp. (TOKYO: 9434) hosted SoftBank World 2025, a major event for enterprise customers. In addition to keynotes and talk sessions, visitors were invited to explore advanced technologies and services in the neighboring exhibition hall. One major display showcased SoftBank's roots in telecommunications, and its future. The journey began with a humble rotary phone.

From rotary phones to smartphones: the story of SoftBank's evolution in telecommunications

The classic black rotary telephone was a hit with the crowd-for some it was their first time to see one up close. Guests eagerly turned the dial, relishing its clicking sound.

These analog landline phones were ubiquitous in Japan from the 1950s through the early 1980s, before push-button models took over.

Mobile telephony ushered in a new era in the late 1980s. The first-generation (1G) "shoulder phones" and car-mounted units used analog signals to enable voice calls on the go-liberating customers from being at fixed locations like their homes or offices. Yet, at the time, these devices were expensive and primarily used by businesses rather than the average consumer.

The 1990s marked a turning point with the advent of 2G digital networks, making mobile phones accessible to masses. Voice quality improved, and compact "feature phones" became the norm-some even folding shut with "clamshell" form factors. In 2000, the J-PHONE Group-an antecedent of SoftBank Corp.'s mobile business-launched the world's first camera phone, the J-SH04. This feature phone sparked a new cultural movement with its "Sha-mail" (photo-mail) features, and fundamentally changed how people communicated.

As the 2000s progressed, 3G networks proliferated, turning mobile devices into true Internet machines. Beside the J-SH04 stood the colorful SoftBank 812SH, launched with 20 color hues initially, with four more added later.

The AQUOS 905SH, featuring a swivelling LCD perfect for "One-seg" (short for one of the 13 digital TV broadcasting waveband segments used in Japan) viewing, demonstrated how phones were becoming multimedia hubs.

A major milestone arrived in 2008, when SoftBank secured exclusive rights in Japan to market the iPhone 3G. Japan's first iPhone drew long queues at 'SoftBank' brand stores, firmly establishing the company as a smartphone pioneer.

The 2010s saw the rollout of 4G (LTE), making high-definition video streaming and large data transfers commonplace. Social media and video platforms flourished on smartphones, cementing them as an indispensable part of daily life.

Now, in the 2020s, 5G's promise of high capacity, ultra-low latency, and massive device connectivity is yielding new use cases-from smart factories to immersive AR experiences. What was previously merely a means of voice calls has become a foundation for addressing societal challenges and creating entirely new industries.

Advanced Technologies to Power Tomorrow's Networks

After tracing the journey from analog rotary phones to 5G, the exhibit turned to state-of-the-art technologies that promise to make modern communication faster, more reliable, and more ubiquitous than ever.

First on display was a cylindrical, outdoor base station antenna that supports Sub-6 multiband operations. Designed to cover a broad swath of frequencies from 4G LTE through 5G, these antennas have underpinned SoftBank's nationwide network rollout and remain widely deployed today.

Next up was a square, integrated radio-unit antenna demonstrating Massive MIMO operations. An evolution of conventional MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output), Massive MIMO uses dozens or even hundreds of individual antenna elements to enable simultaneous high-speed connections to many devices. As a foundational building block for post-5G network infrastructure, this technology dramatically boosts capacity and spectral efficiency-and its deployment is expected to only accelerate in the years ahead.

Left: Sub-6 multiband antenna. Right: Massive MIMO antenna

Realizing ubiquitous connectivity by combining terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks

SoftBank's vision of Ubiquitous Transformation (UTX) combines terrestrial 5G networks with Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN)-including satellites and High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS) platforms-is expected to deliver seamless network coverage anywhere on Earth.

In mountain valleys, construction sites, or disaster-stricken areas unreachable by ground-based networks, satellite-based communications now provide a lifeline. As part of their business-continuity planning (BCP), many enterprises are deploying satellite links as a backup for when their primary networks go down.

SoftBank now offers "Starlink Business" for enterprise customers, connecting remote offices, schools, and sites in the field directly to the Internet. Preparations are also underway to bring "Eutelsat OneWeb" services on board: when paired with SoftBank's SmartVPN, it will enable secure, private-network communications-ideal for disaster recovery or any use case demanding highly secure and consistent connections.

A highlight of the booth was the new "Standard V4 Starlink Antenna," which is significantly lighter and more compact than its predecessor. It packs into a backpack-type case and can be assembled in a matter of minutes, making it accessible even to non-technical users.

Equally impressive was the HAPS exhibit. Flying at roughly 20 km altitudes and able to cover areas up to 200 km in diameter, HAPS platforms come in two varieties: LTA ("Lighter Than Air") types, which uses buoyant gases, and HTA ("Heavier Than Air") types, which generate lift aerodynamically as airplanes do.

In June 2025, SoftBank announced plans to begin a pre-commercial HAPS service in Japan in 2026, using US-based partner Sceye's LTA-type HAPS platform. After initially focusing on emergency communications during natural disasters, full-fledged services from 2027 or after will extend broadband-style coverage to mountainous regions, remote islands and other hard-to-reach areas that currently lack reliable wireless service.

Next to a model of the HTA-type HAPS platform "Sunglider" stood a figure of SoftBank's canine mascot 'Otosan' in a spacesuit

From rotary phones to smartphones, and to networks in space and the stratosphere, visitors were captivated by technologies carrying the power of connectivity to the next frontier.

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(Posted on August 7, 2025)
by SoftBank News Editors