There are similar technical reasons that the U.S. and Japan ended up this way. In both countries carriers used to have different, incompatible mobile network te

There are similar technical reasons that the U.S. and Japan ended up this way. In both countries carriers used to have different, incompatible mobile network technologies, so phones were naturally locked to a carrier. In Europe and elsewhere, everyone used GSM, then UMTS, then LTE. Today everyone is moving to LTE, but of course the carriers don't want to give up the power they got used to having.