DoCoMo’s network puts ATT and Vodafone to shame

Japan’s largest mobile operator NTT DoCoMo announced this morning that for the first time in the world, they have managed a 100% population 3G coverage with their WCDMA network. The last 2 villages with reception towers installed are both in Okinawa, where they don’t even speak proper Japanese. The towers will be powered up on Mar28. Take note that this is only population coverage but not area coverage, but you can expect that there’ll be 3G signals as long as there is a village. (We have no way to assess DoCoMo’s definition of a “village”) The company will continue to expand their coverage area (in rural areas) with the new 1.7Ghz  band that they obtained from the government, on top of the ongoing HSDPA upgrading.  You can call NTT obsessive for building towers in places where nobody uses cellphones anyway, but don’t forget that a lot of so-called  developed countries  don’t even have a satisfactory 2G coverage, cough ATT cough Vodafone. —Sam Chan

Press release [NTT DoCoMo]