Travel Technology - Tri-mode US-Japan Phones?

I travel to Japan at least once a year and I'm rather disappointed to find that there are no dual or tri-mode phones that will work in both the U.S. and in Japan being offered by any of the major cellular carriers in the U.S. Can anyone explain why this is such a black hole? I have to believe that there must be quite a few people who travel back and forth on a regular basis between the U.S. and Japan as I do and would be very grateful for such a phone.

None yet, but expect one or two to be released later this year. The technologies are so different that combining them in one phone for such a small part of the market wouldn't make economic sense.

I have an unocked Nokia 6650 that I use in Japan on short trips.... It uses the same charger as my Nokia 6600, same BT headset, etc... It's not an elegant phone but it gets the job done on Vodafone KK. Sorry this phone won't support US GSM frequencies (GSM850 or GSM1900)

There are several handsets from Japanese vendors that will be out on Vodafone Europe networks first that will support WCDMA+Tri Band GSM.

Also keep an eye out for the Motorola E1000 (and later V1000). The E1000 is a Tri-band GSM (sorry no GSM 850 only GSM900/1800/1900) + WCDMA2100MHz (Works on WCDMA 3G Networks in Japan, Europe, Asia).

With the Nokia 6650 and a STANDARD Vodafone Germany SIM (Contract SIM) I'm able to 3G data packet roam the 6650 in all Vodafone 3G networks (owned or roaming partners). Data performance is much better than GPRS.