Ever since the mobile phone fever hit Japan, we have begun hearing announcements in trains, "Please refrain from using mobile phones in the train because it will disturb other people around you and may interfere with medical equipment some passengers may be carrying." It is not a bad idea to make such an announcement, reminding people to stop doing things in public places that disturb or bother others. But if you hear such an announcement every time you get on a train, you start wondering if the announcement itself is a nuisance to people on the train. "Can't they trust the common sense of people? Don't they think people will learn?" I used to mutter to myself, "Don't overdo it. We are not kids!" Then I look around and ask myself, "Are we?"

Recently I have noticed fewer such announcements and can enjoy the ride and take a nap on the train without being bothered by these routine announcements. However, I have come to realize it is not because people have learned cell phone manners in public, because I now notice more and more people staring at phones as if reading books. Mobile phones no longer require you to talk, but to push buttons! One time I saw four out of seven people sitting on the passenger seat staring at the phones with their thumbs busily pushing the buttons. It is quiet all right, but I don't know if it is safe for the people around them who are wearing medical equipment or pacemakers, etc. In any event thanks to the "i-mode" that NTT Docomo created, I don't have to wonder if I need to say something to kids yelling at their phones in a crowded train. And I have my nap back on the train without the conductors' routine announcements and without loud conversations of people saying "Moshi, Moshi (hello?)" or bowing to nobody.

The penetration of i-mode in Japan is something worth noting. Ms. Mari Matsunaga, the woman who headed the i-mode project at NTT Docomo, has been named "Woman of The Year 2000" by the "Nikkei Women's Program," sponsored by a popular newspaper comparable to the Wall Street Journal in the USA, as a result of the outstanding success of the i-mode. The number of i-mode subscribers exceeded every projection or expectation. The IT terminology book my daughter bought a month ago, which was published in May 2000, says the i-mode is building momentum and will reach 10 million by the spring of 2001. As of October 27^th, it was actually on the way to surpassing the 14 million mark. (I got this figure when I attended a gathering where Mr. Tsuyoshi Natsuno, a man who has driven the i-mode project together with Ms. Mari Matsunaga, explained the i-mode strategy they deployed. He determined this figure by using his i-mode to access the Docomo database while talking to us). Now the latest prediction is 20 million by the end of March 2001.

The amazing thing is that all this is happening in such a short period of time and completely changing the direction of the mobile phone. Docomo launched i-mode on February 22, 1999 after a delay of two months and a great amount of agony and struggle. It didn't take off that rapidly or easily and took over five and a half months to reach one million. It wasn't until August 8th that the NTT Docomo management considered the project to be a success. The original sales target set by the project had been 5 million by the autumn of 2000.

On October 18^th it reached 2 million. Since then, the increase has been phenomenal. Ms. Matsunaga wrote a book, "i-mode, The Incident!," about her experiences at Docomo leading the project. It has been an incident to her since she was recruited three years ago while working at the biggest recruiting company as a chief editor for a magazine for job searching. She had no knowledge of the telecommunication industry and didn't even own a mobile phone. With the telecommunication industry being conservative and technology driven by nature, she had to struggle inside and even against the consulting firm the management had brought in. So it was an incident or accident to her! (She left Docomo on March 31 this year and is now running a new business under ewoman .com.)

She is very humble when she calls it an incident. It is social phenomenon that is changing the industry, if not the way we behave. If you happen to be one who does not appreciate the use of a mobile phone, you are not alone. Two of my daughters live and sleep with their phones but I still ask for a pay phone in a bar when I have to call my wife telling her I will be late, and get a funny look or sympathetic look from the waiter. (Is this because I am using a pay phone or because I have to call my wife? Hmmmm). One fact that eases my mind is that I recently learned that AT&T once retreated from the wireless phone market based on an internal report saying the number of the wireless phone users would be 900,000 globally. (The statistics say it is now 500 million globally).

The i-mode or mobile phone with Internet access capability offers a variety of services starting with access to your bank accounts, purchasing airline tickets, trading stocks, buying music and so on. Everyday some new way of using it surfaces. Tsutaya, the largest video rental shop in Japan, offers the service of announcing the latest arrivals of new videos of the category of your choice through i-mode. When you come to the store with the phone showing the announcement from the shop, you receive a 50% discount on the video rental. The owner of Tsutaya says that the problem with video rental business is that for new videos it takes 7 to 10 days before people recognize and start renting them. With this service they have rentals take off immediately. Besides, he says people will never go back home with just one video rental.

By subscription, you have a choice of melodies that ring upon receipt of a call, a choice of a screen saver which can be a movie star or comic character figure, even games and karaoke. Mr. Natsuno at the gathering told us that all the directors of one large consumer electronics company were given an i-mode prior to the summer vacation and were told to master it during the holidays. They would be receiving all kinds of instructions from the boss including the promotions and demotions or transfers to other jobs or termination of positions over their i-mode phones.

Natsuno went on to tell us that one reason for the success of i-mode lies in the fact it deployed the de facto standards, or HTML, instead of pursuing the latest or best technology being discussed at the time. Also, a lot of emphasis was placed on designing the business model and the marketing centered on content with no mention of Internet. In essence, he was saying they departed from a typical approach then common to any telecommunication carrier who always places high priority on technology and reliability and tends to make the needs of the customer secondary. The headhunting of Ms. Matsunaga and Mr. Natsuno to head such a project was unthinkable to a telecommunication company.

There is no stopping the widespread use of wireless phones. With its size it lives with you all day, thus it is definitely going to change the way people live and work. It is happening not only to a certain segment of the population, but rather is a phenomenon that is affecting society and people. We Japanese were not of the key board culture, as the Japanese language was not suited for a typewriter, which was one reason why Japan was slow in adapting to the PC environment. But we are quickly moving toward the thumb-button culture. It is certainly going to eliminate the "Walkman" or disposal cameras. It is not a question of "have it or don't have it," but more a question of when to have one.

You may address any comments concerning this editorial by email to Mr. Eto