"The day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid on to houses just like water or gas -- and friends will converse with each other without leaving home."
This was the grand prediction of Alexander Graham Bell, written to his father, shortly after he invented the telephone in 1876. Bell accurately saw long-distance communication becoming a common utility -- like water or gas, available to virtually everyone. But could he have seen how much communication would change? Could he have imagined his invention -- a large wooden box with a funnel, a battery and a cup of acid -- becoming a mobile telephone, compact enough to fit into a pocket, yet powerful enough to transmit sound, images and data?
In modern-day Japan, wireless communication is ubiquitous. Everywhere, people of all ages -- from salarymen to elementary school children -- are talking or mailing on their keitai (cell phones). According to the Telecommunications Carriers Association, which takes annual surveys of the number of cell-phone users, there was a ninefold increase from January 1996 to October 2002 -- a swell from roughly 8 million users to 78 million. If you exclude newborns and the elderly, it would seem that virtually everyone has one.