Both Japan and the United States face three similar trends in telecommunications as wireless technology advances and the Internet protocol (IP) becomes the mainstream protocol: 1) With growing usage of mobile phones, the role of "primary telephone" has been increasingly shifting from fixed-line phones to mobile phones. 2) The role of the mobile phone is becoming less of a traditional simple voice telephone, but more of a information terminal, which carries various applications such as voice, data, imaging, etc. 3) Conversely, personal computers (PCs), the popular application of which has been data communications such as e-mails, text messages, graphics, or videos, are becoming capable of voice communications—the sole function of a plain old telephone service (POTS). At the same time, IP technology has been changing fundamentally the way we communicate, expanding communications applications almost limitlessly, and leading us to the ubiquitous networks society.
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