Japanese mobile giant KDDI to launch U.S. service

It's like a Japanese cellphone fanboy's dream come true: Japan's number two carrier, KDDI, has announced that it will launch its own stateside MVNO (that's Mobile Virtual Network Operator, for those of you who aren't familiar with mobile industry lingo) in partnership with Sprint. The service, which is allegedly aimed at Japanese ex-pats, will allow mobile users to use certain KDDI phones and mobile services in the states, which will run on Sprint's CDMA network. The bloggers are working themselves into a frenzy over this one but I'm a bit skeptical. Why? Well, next to DoCoMo, KDDI's phones aren't really all that exciting. And almost none of the advanced features that Japanese users enjoy (video chat, mobile payments, etc.) will be able to operate on Sprint's network. Ultimately, you'll be paying out the nose for the privilege of carrying what's really a ¥1 phone--and it won't even be able to do half of the things that its Japanese counterpart does. If you want to know how this is all going to shake out, I think it might be instructive to look at the Asian MVNO trailblazer Helio: cool phones and not much else. KDDI plans to launch its U.S. service by the middle of this month. Yawn.

For more on KDDI's forthcoming U.S. service:
- see this Asahi Shimbun article