Yeah, the features in the Japanese market are mostly due to the ease of expanding infrastructure. I remember getting a plan with Au that only had the good features in the Tokyo metro area. That was fine, as I never left that area. Millions of other people were in the same boat. Maybe they left the Tokyo area once or twice a year, but other than that, never.
In the US, that would never fly. The people that are willing to pay for the features need them to work in all the "large metro areas", which doesn't mean "Manhattan" but rather "suburbs of Phoenix" and so on. This makes infrastructure roll-outs very expensive, and it's why they never happen.
(Incidentally, people in the US and Japan have similar commute times, but the population density in the US goes down a lot faster as you move away from the city center. In Tokyo, it's densely packed until you get to the mountains.)
Population density has its advantages; look at everything Japan has that the US doesn't (100Mbps internet for $20/month, interesting cell-phone features, amazing rail systems), and population density explains it all. But then, they don't have 5 bedroom houses for $150,000, either.
Popluation density doesn't completely explain it. For instance here in Sweden we also have 100Mbps Internet-connection for about $20-$30/month and flat-rate 3g data-plans and we aren't exactly densily populated (#192 in the world according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population...). Here I think it has a lot to do with the fact that government has been pushing a lot for better IT-infrastructure.
I'm personally I strong believer in the free market, however sometimes the market is too short-sighted to make investments that will benefit society in the long run. Infrastructure and education are good examples of that. It's hard for private investors to get good ROI on things like roads, IT-networks and schools because it takes many years to get any return and it's hard to charge people as much as it actually benefits the public.
I saw and interview with Bill Gates where he basically said that this was his rationale behind the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The market simply doesn't maximize the amount of lives saved per dollar and you need non-profit organizations to do that.
And here in Canada we pay 30$/MB for over-the-air data, and a 5Mb (that's mega-bit, not byte) internet connection is almost 50$ per month. That's also pretty much the fastest you can get even in the capital (Ottawa). God I feel like I'm living in a third-world country.
In the US, that would never fly. The people that are willing to pay for the features need them to work in all the "large metro areas", which doesn't mean "Manhattan" but rather "suburbs of Phoenix" and so on. This makes infrastructure roll-outs very expensive, and it's why they never happen.
(Incidentally, people in the US and Japan have similar commute times, but the population density in the US goes down a lot faster as you move away from the city center. In Tokyo, it's densely packed until you get to the mountains.)
Population density has its advantages; look at everything Japan has that the US doesn't (100Mbps internet for $20/month, interesting cell-phone features, amazing rail systems), and population density explains it all. But then, they don't have 5 bedroom houses for $150,000, either.