世論 What Japan Thinks

Just a quick note to any of my readers who might be docomo users but have missed the news. From the day after tomorrow (1st of October 2008) docomo introduce their “pake-hodai double” flat-rate packet charge. Their English site is rather out of date, but the Japanese page has the details. Basically rather than the mess of plans they had before there is now a simple sliding scale of charges just like the other providers have. For 1,029 yen you get 12,250 packets (about 1.5 megabytes), then each additional 128 byte packet costs 0.084 yen until you get to 52,500 packets (6.7 megs), where it tops off at 4,410 yen. The one point of note is that if you use a full browser (Mobile Explorer, Opera, etc) it doesn’t top off until 5,985 yen, but don’t ask me what happens if you mix both types of packet! So, the end-points are the same if you are a heavy data user, but this is the best plan for light, but not too light, users.

You can apply through your mobile phone, via the My docomo site, or in person at any docomo shop.

However, using your phone as a modem for your computer is still out of scope of the new plan, so get an e-mobile data card instead!