KDDI Launches MVNO in US
KDDI Mobile has migrated to the US using Sprint’s network as a MVNO. KDDI is Japan’s second most popular cell phone network, with a new target market — Japenese Americans. While it might somewhat limit the initial target audience, the network isn’t limited in who can sign up. The plans are pre-paid at $.12/minute for airtime, and $.15/message. Japan is known for being ahead of the US in terms of cell phones, although KDDI Mobile is only offering 2 phones at the moment: LG 225 and Sanyo 2400 (two pretty low end phones). Let’s hope we can see some of those 5 megapixel camera phones, and other advanced phones coming to America through this offering. You can sign up today.
It’s doubtful we’ll see some of the phones that they have over in Japan as A) They’ll be licensing plain CDMA from Sprint (and won’t be running their CDMA2000 network) and B) In their press release they said that this isn’t au by KDDI, but just standard KDDI.
Though if by chance we do get some of those wicked phones, I’ll have a sudden change of heart in my hatred of CDMA.