The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple is making plans for a meeting amongst DoCoMo and Softbank Corp. to discuss rights to which mobile phone service can carry the iPhone in Japan. The iPhone only has EDGE and DoCoMo doesn't have EDGE available, so the iPhone released in Japan would definitely have to be 3G.
Japan may not tolerate the slow speeds of EDGE and completely avoid the iPhone though we did post a video of the iPhone vs Nokia E61i Shootout with the iPhone beating the E61i with 3G in website loading times due to excellent rendering on the iPhone. Japan has had amazing cell phones for years now and the iPhone looks to be old technology besides the large Multi-Touch interface.
[Via ParisLemon]
Japan doesn’t have EDGE, their networks today are all 3G either WCDMA/UMTS (GSM camp), or CDMA/EVDO
So if Apple wants a device for the Japan market and they are talking to DoCoMo then it will need to be a proper 3G device.
The problem for the iPhone in Japan is not EDGE vs anything. Thats just electronics that can easily be adapted to the unique system in Japan. The problem is that the average japanese person doesnt care about having a phone that can do email or other smartphone functions like access the web. They simply love their mediocre phones with terrible UI’s that run on very fast and reliable networks, and require dedicated apps to do everything.