The smartest thing DoCoMo did was not to use the word Internet in any of its promotions. Indeed, Japan and the Internet have gone together like sushi and ketchup. Even today, in Japan, the world's second largest economy, only 625,000 homes have high-speed Internet access, out of a population of 126 million people. PCs never caught on, in part because the first models were ugly and bulky and used keyboards the Japanese aren't comfortable with. But the more important obstacle was money.
Telecommunications is still a tightly regulated industry in Japan.
Local phone calls are expensive and charged by the minute. DoCoMo charges i-mode users according to the amount of data they receive or send, not the amount of time they are online. One message with 50 characters costs 1 yen. But a year ago, his boss launched a site for i-mode that brokers deals between drivers and cargo companies. One night, Hakuta logged on and found a client needing pipes trucked the other way, back to Tokyo.