Deflating DoCoMo

If television programming is a reflection of society, then it should come as no surprise that Japan, a nation of certifiable mobile-phone freaks, will soon be watching a TV drama about a family of itinerant and compulsive dialers. Likewise it should not be surprising that The Cell-Phone Family Show, when it airs this spring, will be sponsored by NTT DoCoMo. After all, the Japanese wireless communications company embedded cell phones deeply into local culture when it launched its phenomenally successful i-mode mobile Internet service, now used by some 30 million Japanese. I-mode's success turned DoCoMo into a global telecommunications role model,...

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