SoftBank brings iPhone 3G to Japan
Oh no! My worst nightmare! Looks like I’ll have to give up on owning an iPhone….
Announcing iPhone™
June 4, 2008
SOFTBANK MOBILE Corp.SOFTBANK MOBILE Corp. today announced it has signed an agreement with Apple® to bring the iPhone™ to Japan later this year.
Why do I dislike SoftBank? Well, it is not really that I dislike them. I’ve actually been on all of the network carriers while being here in Tokyo (besides EMobile which is new) and have written about them in my old blog which I will summarize here:
Air “H” (2000 - 2001) - this network has changed a bit and is now called Wilcom
Great sound quality (phs) but calling to other network cellphones cost a bomb
NTT DoCoMo (2001-2002) - there was no FOMA then
Good sound quality, good signal/coverage, crap email which was limited to approx 500 characters, expensive monthly fees
J-Phone (2002 - 2004) - later became Vodafone and now SoftBank
OK sound quality, crap signal/coverage, email better than DoCoMos’, cheap monthly fees
AU KDDI (2004 - present)
Good sound quality, good signal/coverage, acceptable monthly fees
Basically, my current network provider, AU, proved to be the best all-rounder for me hence I’ve stuck it out with them during the last few years. I’m sure SoftBank has had some improvements made during this period but I still occasionally hear complaints from SoftBank-user friends complaining of no coverage in certain areas while my AU does. So yeah, I won’t be switching to SoftBank any time soon.
If DoCoMo had got the iPhone, I’m all for switching because I’ve heard good things about DoCoMo’s Foma sound quality.
Anyway, we’ll see if the iPhone is exclusively limited to one carrier in Japan… fingers crossed…
Update: 2008.06.05
A little more detail than SoftBank’s official PR.
The sound quality these days is more or less the same across all the 3G carriers. I feel it is dependent more on the handset rather than the carrier. As an example, the Mediaskin was total crap for sound quality even though other AU phones are fine. Most Docomo 3G phone sound quality is excellent although I would say from my experience the NEC phones were the best.
You probably joined AU around the time CDMAOne was released and at that time they had the best sound quality. But FOMA is much better now and was built as a 3G network from the start.
BTW, I’m using a Softbank phone now even though I said I would never ever buy a Softbank phone.
Grey market doesn’t exist in Japan?