After enjoying the speed and always-on convenience of broadband Internet for about a year, I was surprised one afternoon to feel an odd pang of disconnectedness when staying at a friend's cottage in Izu. With nary a phone line or fiber-optic cable for miles around, I briefly found myself wishing my friend had instead revealed an absence of, say, indoor plumbing.
It's a condition of which I'm increasingly aware and think of as next-generation agoraphobia -- fear of open spaces without Internet access. The good news for me and others like me, however, is that open spaces are becoming more and more connected all the time.
Nowhere is the growth of the wireless Internet more apparent than right here in Japan. Ubiquitous cell phone networks, the fastest-growing broadband subscriber base in the world and an insatiable appetite for the latest gadgets have put Japan at the forefront of Internet technology development and diffusion.