Nine years ago, I was fortunate to work for Unwired Planet, a small Silicon Valley company with brilliant innovators trying to enable Internet services on the mobile phone (it later morphed into Openwave Systems). Our task: to dream up what mobile phones could do with Internet capabilities. What we didn't know then was that it would take nearly a decade to realize these dreams, and it would happen in South Korea first, not America.

Even then we knew the mobile Internet was a different paradigm from the wired Internet-people won't buy books from Amazon.com on their phone, and they won't do research with Google. Instead, we imagined the mobility of the experience, with phones knowing who we are and where we are. And since it is hard to type on phones, services would rarely ask for text input. To account for the small screens, sites would weed out all but the most important information. News or weather services would work off the phone's location. Stock symbols or e-mail usernames would automatically be remembered. We are mobile. We want data quick and easy. No, the wired Internet wasn't our model.

What happened? European and American operators sold "the Internet on the phone," and developers dutifully streamed their complex PC web sites to the mobile phone, barely paring them down for mobile usage. Stock quotes were 18-40 key-clicks away. You couldn't get the weather in less than 5 minutes. This definitely wasn't our dream.

I was lucky, though, as Openwave sent me on annual research trips to Japan. The Japanese culture and competition led them to develop the world's greatest mobile data services. Soon they exported camera phones and ringtone downloads to other countries. This still wasn't our dream, but it was coming closer.

In 2005 I went to South Korea to research their services. They had quietly developed better consumer data services than I had seen anywhere else in the world. SK Telecom's June service is a consumer masterpiece.

After I left Openwave early last year, I decided to analyze these markets again, this time freely sharing the results with the public. Here is what I found:

Imagine you are 7 years old. You ask your parents for a mobile phone. Do you get it? In South Korea you do. First, you remind mom and dad that the phone will automatically track you (no, your parents don't have to keep checking where you are; instead, your parents get an SMS when your phone leaves a specified geographic zone, like around your school or home). Next, you remind them that with SK Telecom's Ting service for children, they will have fixed limits on costs. The phones are also designed for young children, with a fixed limit on how many phone numbers can be stored or used (so you can only call mom and dad) and protection against inappropriate services or usage. Besides, you whine, "everyone else has one..."

You are now in high school. You move up to SK Telecom's TTL service (KTF has a similar service). TTL has TTL Zones, which are cool cafe-style meeting places with free wired Internet access and other mobile services. Also, if you only use the phone in your zones, your costs are much lower. Kids like music, right? Sign up to Melon or Fimm and get all the music downloads you want for only $5 per month. You want My Space? In Korea this is cyworld, and it is available on every mobile operator's phone. It isn't their PC web site-that's inappropriate for a phone-but an easy-to-use, 2 to 3 key-click experience that is so addictive it gets 20 million visitors a month (South Korea only has 48 million citizens).

As an adult, you might find Cizle helpful for buying movie tickets and charging them to your phone bill (it sends an SMS with a code you type at the theater to get the tickets). Nate Golf helps you set up your tee times and track your handicap. Need a taxi? Just press a few keys-they know your location and will send it directly. Small business owner? You can remotely monitor your restaurant from your phone while you are away.

And yes, you can get a stock quote. How many key-clicks? None. Just open your phone and 1MM scrolls your favorite stock's quote on a line on your idle screen (along with the weather and local news).

Many of these services are also available in Japan, but I found the user interface and reduced typing or scrolling on SK Telecom's phones to be much more consumer oriented. Check out the full reports at www.consumerease.com. These services are fascinating, and I can't wait until they are available here.