How many Japanese carriers would have guessed already have 100 percent HSPA+ coverage? 3? 5? 17? Believe it or not, the answer was a big, fat goose egg until up-and-comer eMobile stepped up to the plate and upgraded its back end in recent days. Customers with properly-equipped hardware are now cruising along at up to 21Mbps (well, theoretically, anyhow), which should be more than enough to take 'em into the LTE-based next phase of their plans for world domination. It's said that since garnering its spectrum license back in 2005, eMobile has already managed to capture some 15 percent of Japan's HSPA market -- an impressive stat, considering they've got to go head-to-head with giants NTT DoCoMo and SoftBank Mobile -- and HSPA+ certainly won't hurt their cause.

It's not often that we have an opportunity to point and laugh at the crushing antiquity of anything in Japan. Look, don't get your hopes up, we can't really do it here either -- but with LTE, it seems like the rest of the world has finally reached technological parity. Japan has just gotten around to approving its 4G carriers' game plans, with NTT DoCoMo likely first out of the gate thanks to deployments in 2010 (around the same time that Verizon expects to have some markets in action). eMobile, Softbank, and current CDMA carrier KDDI will follow on through 2011, with a grand total of over a trillion yen (about $10.4B) being spent in the next half decade. Don't get us wrong -- we're sure the handsets will still be cooler than anything we can get, and they'll likely have the entire country blanketed in 4G before most others have just a handful of cities live, but at least they're not on 5G. Yet.

[Via IntoMobile, thanks Lauren]

Just last month we heard that Japan's CDMA giant (that'd be KDDI) would be throwing its weight behind LTE, and now we have every idea that it'll be filling out an application to prove as much in April. According to a new report in The Mainichi Daily News, Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has decided to begin taking applications for 4G frequency allocation beginning in around three months, while approvals are expected to start in June. NTT Docomo, KDDI, Softbank Mobile and Emobile have all been granted permission to apply, and if we had to bet, we'd say the entire foursome will do just that. Ah, 4G -- so close, yet so far away.

[Thanks, Vagrant]

Up until today, Japan's EMOBILE was up and running, sure, but there was a catch: it didn't offer any phones. It had been offering Sharp's lovely EM-ONE, yes, but the device wasn't voice capable. The low-cost GSM carrier is movin' on up in the world now, though, with the introduction of the Toshiba-sourced H11T clamshell and the Windows Mobile 6-powered S11HT "EMONSTER" from HTC, which should look very familiar to anyone with a TyTN II or Tilt. EMOBILE's got a fairly small footprint that's restricted primarily to densely populated areas, so anyone looking to jet set across Japan is probably going to want the H11T, which is capable of roaming on DoCoMo's airwaves and features a 3.2 megapixel camera, one-seg tuner, and a QVGA display. The company's going to start taking preorders on March 1, with the official voice launch going down on March 28.

Goodbye W-ZERO3, hello EM-ONE. As lust for Japan-only Windows Mobile devices goes, Sharp's W-ZERO3 for Willcom (along with its various spinoffs) has always held a very special place in our hearts, but it looks like there's a new sheriff in town. The EM-ONE, also from Sharp, will be a launch device for Japan's new GSM carrier EMOBILE next month, rocking HSDPA, WiFi, and one-seg TV tuning in a 18.9mm-thin package. "But wait," as they say, "that's not all." Nope, not hardly. The madness continues with a dual-slide design, providing what Sharp calls "Control Style," "Input Style," and "View Style." And just what will you be viewing, you ask? A true wide VGA (800 x 480) display showing Windows Mobile 5 in all its glory sitting atop a 520MHz XScale. Throw in a little Bluetooth here, 512MB of onboard Flash there, and you have pretty much the hottest thing going (at least among the outgoing batch of WinMo 5 devices). It'll apparently run ¥95,000 (about $796) contract-free, but tack on the requisite 2 year agreement and you're only looking at ¥39,800 ($333) -- not bad at all, considering the package.

[Via Unwired View]