In Japan, meanwhile, more than 7 million people already access the Web via tiny mobile devices. Hundreds of sites here cater to the small screen, and magazine stands are packed with the TV Guide wannabes of this young medium. Japan is the test bed for the world's wireless future. The gadget-crazy Japanese are themselves part of the reason for this. Nowhere else are device manufacturers as driven to miniaturize, innovate, and ply on the features by a consumption-minded public.
Demographics is perhaps the most important animus behind Japan's unwired revolution.
Certainly a big number, but dialup accounted for 92 percent of consumer online access in 1999, leaving a tiny 1 percent surfing via wireless. And despite the growth in high-speed cable, DSL, and satellite access, by 2002 about 80 percent of US surfers will still connect with a 56K dialup modem, IDC says. What this means is that today and for the foreseeable future, some 76 million US adults will continue to access the Net at pokey speeds via hard-wired PCs. Wired access in Japan is even more dismal. In Japan, homes are tiny, PC prices are still not considered cheap, and wired infrastructure is expensive to install.