Japan’s mobile telephone industry has grown dramatically since the early 1980s. The number of cell phones in Japan has grown from 40,000 in 1984 to 71.6 million in 2002. In addition, there are about 5.7 million subscribers to PHS technology phones, which use a different system of transmitting signals. One unusual feature of Japan’s mobile phone use is that more than three-quarters of mobile phones have internet access. This is the primary form of internet access for many people. The very high rate of mobile phone use in Japan has led to reduced use of conventional telephone service. Conventional phone service subscriptions peaked in 1995 at 61 million phones, but by 2001 this had dropped about 17 percent, to 50 million subscriptions.