An Analysis of the Diffusion Factor in Internet Access Devices: Can the Cellular Phone Play the Role as Universal Access(in Japanese)

Providing universal access to the Internet has become an important policy issue; today the Internet is indispensable to political, economic, and social activities. On the other hand, as a result of the slowdown of the spread of the personal computer to the home and the speed-up of the spread of Internet access through the cellular phone, concern about the device for Internet access is increasing. This paper empirically compares the diffusion factor of the cellular phone and the personal computer, and evaluates why the cellular phone has tended to spread to the home more than the personal computer has. This suggests that it is highly possible that the cellular phone is playing an important role as a device for universal access to the Internet.