Mobile web predictions from November 2005

My Nov 13, 2005 ToledoTalk.com thread titled Japanese mobility that excerpted from this Nov 10, 2005 post titled How far ahead is Japanese Mobility?

So I ask a very simple question: How far ahead is Japanese Mobile Web use from US, Europe and other parts of Asia? One year? Two? I won’t listen to anyone give me junk about how the Japanese are “different” - you’ve seen me bitch about that before - they’re not. They simply have more advanced networks, more powerful phones and more compelling mobile web services which drive nearly 3/4 of those polled to use the mobile web every day. That, my friend, is ubiquity if I ever saw it. So how far away is the rest of the world from these types of sky-high usage?"

"It’s impossible to gauge perfectly, but let me throw out my thoughts. I’d say that the U.S. is only about 18 months behind the Japanese, and (ready for this?) the Europeans in general are about two years behind because of carriers’ resistance to unlimited data plans."

"What my predictions mean is that in the U.S. we’re going to see big upswings in mobile web usage over the next year (pushed by MVNOs and carrier competition), reaching near Japanese levels of use by mid 2007."