Tokyo has the dumbest smartphone bills
iPhones? Smarthones? Phooey—It’s just money down the toilet.
As a subcontractor to Softbank, Japan’s third largest cell phone provider, I’ve been given a iPhone 4S and a generic android for testing. However after I used them for the job, I have declined to pay even the minimum monthly fee that ranges from 4,800-3,500 yen [$82-44 USD] to keep either of them turned on. As I said before (3Yen / 2012-08-27), with my iPad or iTouch I use free WiFI with Skype, Viber, etc. for mobile calling and texting. For “emergency” voice calls, I use a stupidPhone™ from the AU service that only charges me 880 yen [$11 USD] month—Basically, I don’t waste money on frivolous cellphone services.
However, Japanese folks in Tokyo pay through-the-nose on their monthly smartphone bills that average according to The Japan Times:
… per month Tokyoites pay 7,357 yen [$94 USD]… followed by Dusseldorf at the equivalent of 7,012 yen [$89 USD], New York at 6,493 yen [$82 USD], and London, Paris and Stockholm at 3,000 to 4,000 yen [$38-51 USD]. Seoul residents had the lowest smartphone bills among the seven cities at 2,702 yen [$34.37 USD]…
—The Japan Times, 2012/08/30: Tokyoites pay highest smartphone bills among seven major global cities.
Original photo by Nemo’s great uncle, on Flickr | 
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August 30th, 2012 at 5:29 pm
Holy fuck! What makes rates so comparatively cheap for our neighboring Ah-Seouls?
August 30th, 2012 at 5:43 pm
Like Korea’s advanced and cheap fiber broadband (which thankfully dragged Japan into the Internet age kicking and screaming), it has been a governmental policy to keep communications costs down in Korea to spur growth in that key tech sector.
August 30th, 2012 at 8:55 pm
There’s also free wi-fi all over the place in Korea so people don’t have to use 3G as much.
August 30th, 2012 at 8:59 pm
Remembering that the yen is at super high exchange rates against the dollar.
But the reason that the cost is high is cos they haven’t changed in years and the rest of the world is now paying less due to competition and non-price fixing policies… ooops did I say that?
September 21st, 2012 at 4:06 pm
That’s “optimistic.”