Mobile Phones in America just suck.

I’m back in the USSA for the holidays. Initially, I didn’t want to have a mobile phone. I was glad to be free of such a burden, but due to schedules and need for communication, and the fact that I have no wheels, I felt the need to get a pre-paid mobile phone. I had a Trac-fone last year. Over priced, but worked, and was way to complicated to set up. This year I went with a Virgin-Mobile phone. Still overly confusing to set up, but I got it going a lot easier than that Trac-fone. Ironically, the calling plan is a lot more straight forward than a normal monthly plan, but a complete mystery on the packaging and to the store clerks. That’s lame.

In addition the phone itself is dorky. Which is usual in the US. I will never understand how they manage to dumb down the design of models that are always pioneered in Japan.

Really, the best thing that could happen is if a Japanese carrier like AU (KDDI) were to open up shop in the  USA and staff the shops with English-speaking Japanese employees. They could market based on current worldwide coolness of Japanese pop-culture, and teach all the others a thing or two about customer service and quality.