Japan sells not a single 2G phone in January
It turns out that January of this year is the very first month in history that Japanese retailers brought on no stock of 2G phones, and as amazing of a statistic is that is, we have to admit -- we're just a little surprised this didn't happen, like, several years ago. As of the end of February, about 85 percent of Japan's mobile users (read: everyone in the country, we think) were on 3G handsets, another statistic that is both surprising and, at the same time, elicits a bit of an "it took that long?" response from us. Whatever; any way you slice it, these guys and gals are still way better off in the high-speed mobile data department than anyone else we can think of, so we'll err on the side of awe and just simply be impressed at the fact that it's no longer possible to get a crappy phone in the entire country of Japan.[Via IntoMobile]
Filed under: Misc
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
PeterF @ Mar 14th 2008 8:42PM
?
I was under the impression that they didn't even operate any 2G networks anymore.
shinbunboi @ Mar 14th 2008 11:34PM
nah, each of the big 3 still has a 2G network and even a few phones avail but like the stats show the users are dwindling. There's not even a price advantage to be using an older phone so it makes no sense to me to ppl that are still using those phones~
here's a recent article about DoCoMo
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/430741
NuShrike @ Mar 14th 2008 9:52PM
So where does PHS fit in since that's not 3G and still selling in Japan by Willcom and such.
wildklymr @ Mar 15th 2008 12:48AM
Not really all that surprising, at T-mobile they still have a few subscribers using Motorola StarTac handsets, which stopped being sold what last decade? Some people don't like change.
Jamar @ Mar 16th 2008 6:02AM
Trivia-
Technically, the StarTAC only stopped being sold just last year; Korea and China got the StarTAC 2004, but only Korea got the StarTAC III. Motorola thought that most of the world didn't like the StarTAC anymore, hence the VERY limited release of new StarTAC models.
Brad @ Mar 18th 2008 3:46AM
Well, some of the StarTACs had 1Watt transmitters. Compare that to your paltry 1/8W transmitter now and you'll see that if you live outside city limits, it can be nice to have a really damn beefy transmitter.
Cassini @ Mar 15th 2008 2:50AM
We need the people who run these networks in Japan to come to North America and run our networks for awhile.
Rollins @ Mar 15th 2008 12:10PM
Not sure if that'd really do much. It's a lot easier to deploy new technologies over a landmass that's around the size of California than it is over the United States. Not to mention that within Japan's landmass, there's a lot of relatively unpopulated mountain ranges and such.
Genjinaro @ Mar 15th 2008 4:50PM
I couldn't agree more. We really need a frickin renovation with all of our carriers.
Taylor @ Mar 15th 2008 5:38PM
Well, that's kinda what Helio did, only it was Koreans, and they had to deal with what networks were available, so it wasn't that amazing (the phones aren't bad, but asia in general has much better stuff).
-Taylor
Jamar @ Mar 16th 2008 5:59AM
DoCoMo tried that for a while with pre-Cingular AT&T; you can lead a horse to water and stick its face under (AT&T didn't cover a whole lot of the cost in building its 3G network) but you still can't make it drink (else we'd have phones that actually take advantage of the network's abilities by now- you know, 2-way video calls, and all that).
Oh, and @Rollins- even those "unpopulated mountain ranges" are covered in 3G. Rather dedicated of Japan, something we can't say of America.
Cassini @ Mar 16th 2008 9:45PM
Some good points. And yes, the States... so much bigger than Japan. That does make a difference, no doubt.
Well, I suppose there's always the option of moving to Japan. Or not.
But I wouldn't mind swimming in all that tech for awhile.
Vanilla Moose @ Mar 15th 2008 3:14AM
Seems like this coincides with SoftBank releasing a 3G prepaid handset. Now that it's released there probably isn't much demand for 2G handsets, other than for service replacements.
kadajawi @ Mar 16th 2008 1:06AM
Hm, 3 had a prepaid 3G handset in Austria in, like, 2003 or 2004. It was a brick, sure, but still a nice smartphone (the Motorola A925, similar to the SE P800, but with 3G and A-GPS).
trialandterror @ Mar 15th 2008 4:50AM
"just simply be impressed at the fact that it's no longer possible to get a crappy phone in the entire country of Japan."
Until the iPhone that is?
Taylor @ Mar 15th 2008 5:39PM
I think there's a reason it's not for sale in Japan...
-Taylor
Genjinaro @ Mar 15th 2008 9:05PM
Hell they can go 'to' frickin college on damn phones they got. @_@ Thou I wonder how far a degree from that will fly...? :/ The world may never know...