In Tomorrow's mobile services today Ericsson’s Atsuhiko Ohkita, senior market analyst in Tokyo says:

The difference between high-end users in Japan and Europe is perhaps less than a year. But on average, there is a gap of about two to three years. Low-end European users still only use voice and SMS, and don’t want to try web access.”

It's easy why: no easy access, scarcity of content and price. Japan has neither of these problems.

How can we solve the problem:

• Easy access = QR Codes
• Scarcity of Content = let the creativity of the edges flourish, e.g. use mobile enabled weblogs
• Price = Telecom data prices should come down quickly, as I don't see any other way of long term survival for the telecoms. Voice and SMS are already declining.