Two of the biggest country markets of the world, Japan and China, are on their way to develop a next-generation mobile phone network for the Chinese market that paves the way for Japanese phone makers. The Chinese cell phone infrastructure is still mainly based on 2G (Japan turned 100% 3G just a few weeks ago).
Japan’s Prime Minister Taro Aso is expected to meet the Chinese Premier and President tomorrow. The plan is that both countries jointly develop 3G and 3.9G services, mainly aimed at optimizing video file transfers. Another (rather unofficial) reason is to fence out carriers and hardware makers from America and Europe, making sure the huge Chinese market stays under control of Nippon and China.
There are 100 million cell phone users in Japan, but that number is dwarfed by the estimated 600-700 million people owning a mobile phone in China.