Heads-up for docomo users: pake-hodai double
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 Their English site is rather out of date, but the Japanese page has the details.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!
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Janne said,
September 29, 2008 @ 21:33
This is still all just for accessing stuff in the Docomo walled garden, right? Surfing the web at large is still uncapped, I guess.
Ken Y-N said,
September 30, 2008 @ 00:10
Janne, I checked and the pake-hodai double is for the simple CHTML browser even if you access external sites like mixi or dictionary sites, etc; other full browser packets still cost 0.084 yen each, but you definitely get capped at 5,985 yen.
David said,
September 30, 2008 @ 09:41
My e-mobile and eeepc combo keeps me sane during all the down time I have at my ALT job. I’m writing this from the teachers room right now–only 2 classes today. Bleh. I can’t recommend e-mobile enough. Great service and pretty cheap. Little or no English however.
Sasutan said,
October 1, 2008 @ 12:04
David,
Do you know if you can run the emobile card on an english operating system?
Daniel
griffith said,
October 1, 2008 @ 23:20
The E-Mobile USB dongle thing works fine with my English OS (Windows XP). Installation software is in the internal memory. It was dead simple to set up and start using.
Offline methods most popular way of dealing with cellphone billing issues » 世論 What Japan Thinks said,
November 17, 2008 @ 22:49
[…] (no Englis version) for almost daily bill checking now, as I’m trying to find out if their pake-hodai double plan is actually cheaper for me, as I suspect it isn’t as I use barely 1,000 yen’s […]