>>715725665
Actually, their world is kind of limited compared to ours (2001 standards, I suppose - Ace Attorney suffers from this too).

PETs require physical conduits to connect to the web. They're incapable of communicating wirelessly except for very small transmissions (since you can get emails without being jacked in but otherwise they don't have any other connectivity), kind of like SMS or a pager.

The characters are seen using landlines to communicate over anything requiring higher bandwidth than simple emails with the occasional attachment.

At least by Star Force wireless communication is ubiquitous (albeit via EM waves rather than radio).