Smartphones put writing on the wall for paid texts

With so many free messaging apps as well as Skype coming to 3G on iPhone soon it won't be long until most phone companies become mobile Internet providers.

well considering this is Japan and Japantoday, it is rather remiss of you to not mention" line", it's lie a plague! 18million users of line in Japan, 40 million worldwide and growing. Good riddance SMS - I have never had the misfortune of relying on SMS, when I first came to Japan, full email on phones was the M.O of the Japanese keitai, I went straight from a 1G phone back home to a 2G full emailing Japanese phone. And then jumped on the smartphone wagon when docomo first released them 3 years age.