A great majority of the world’s two billion mobile-phone users would probably blink in jealous awe at an advanced Japanese mobile phone like Sharp’s recent hit, the 905SH. The handset, made for wireless carrier Softbank’s Vodafone, sports a stainless-steel frame and a striking, black 6.6cm LCD screen, which swivels 90 degrees to display nine channels of digital TV in crisp, widescreen format. The phone also surfs the Web, serves as a debit card, plays music, takes photos and, oh yes, makes calls. Outside of Japan or South Korea, there is nothing like it.

Thanks to its edge in consumer electronics and early investments in high-speed networks, Japan’s mobile-phone industry is years ahead of most of the world. Everywhere you look, it shows. Tokyo subway riders tap messages to friends, listen to music and play games on their handsets. Shoppers pay for groceries with digital wallets and navigate the streets with GPS-guided maps, two features packed into most new Japanese phones. And now Japan’s wireless ecosystem is poised to get even better. A new “number portability” rule coming on October 24 will make it easier for Japanese mobile-phone users to switch wireless carriers without changing numbers, which in turn is intensifying competition among the three major service providers — NTT DoCoMo, KDDI’s au and Softbank’s Vodafone.

Japanese cell-phone users stand to benefit from the competitive anxiety. On the way, timed to the new regulations, are a wave of slickly designed handsets that emphasise broadband features like mobile music downloads, digital money and, particularly, digital TV. Vodafone was first to introduce a digital TV phone earlier this year with the 905SH, and DoCoMo and KDDI quickly followed with their own models. KDDI is now planning a handset that enables video calls between two subscribers—a first for the carrier.

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