Japan's ubiquitous mobile information society

Mobile communication technologies have come a long way, but they are far from completing their evolutionary path. An examination of the Japanese mobile sector, with its cutting-edge technologies, may provide a glimpse of what is to come for the rest of the world. Japan's mobile users are demanding ever more functionality, and service providers are responding. Moreover, the mobile phone is affecting social norms of behaviour and its use has become integrated within Japanese society as nowhere else. Even though the technology is developing rapidly, the case of Japan suggests that self-regulation and individual restraint can work.