Last Saturday night I was shopping in Kawasaki, which offers the tech geek a variety of stores all withing walking distance of each other. There is Yodobashi, BIC, Sakuraya, and a host of mom and pop stores. I tend hit the major electronics often, to see what new goodies I might spend my hard earned money on.
As I am walking through BIC Camera I notice that Softbank Mobile has a new USB 3G Data Card. It catches my eye since it looks good and offers 7.2Mbs speed. I think to myself maybe Softbank is finally getting their act together and will really support us “power users”. After all, they did bring the iPhone over to Japan.
For some time now I have been considering a netbook and mobile access card for some time now. I quickly look through the product literature to see what plans are currently available.
You have got to be kidding me – no unlimited use price plan? I grab my wife and have her speak to the Softbank agent about the price plans. My initial fears are confirmed – an unlimited data plan is not offered!
Apparently Softbank did not get the memo that users like unlimited data plans. What is really funny is that you only need to walk 3 feet over to the EMOBILE counter to see they offer a variety of devices and cards, all revolving around a 5000yen/mo (approx $60USD) unlimited data plan. This got me to thinking – do any of the service providers in Japan understand the typical “power user”?
The service providers have done a good job in last few years in offering a lot of services from the same company. You can get home Internet, TV, and mobile phone service from a single provider. The major problem is no one is catering to the power user. Where is the complete power user package?
Currently you need to got to KDDI to get 1Gbps home service, Softbankto get an iPhone, and EMOBILE to get an unlimited data card. Why can’t we get all of these services from a single source?
Sure, a company may have to sacrifice a little profit in one service area, but wouldn’ t they rather be able to bill you for 3 or 4 services instead of just one? Users will continue to increase their connectivity needs, making the power user of today a normal user in the next few years. Now is the time to build that complete package to get that loyal user base.
Are you listening KDDI… Softbank… NTT?
Haha, glad I live in holland :P
January 17, 2009 @ 11:33
Do you get good packages as a power user in Holland? I have no clue how it is over in that part of the world.
January 17, 2009 @ 14:55
Not sure, I never buy things you have to pay off per month as some companies over here tend to have nasty tricks.
January 17, 2009 @ 15:27
Power user = power spender LOL.
January 19, 2009 @ 03:37
While I consider myself a power user so far as my broadband use and the professional application of my Mac Pro tower, when out and about with my EEEPC900 (XP model), I routinley use open access, free to use wi-fi points of which in Coventry there are lots: at least enough to cover most the city center I visit. With that said I agree that it would be useful for one company to provide broadband, wireless internet and iphone all with unlimited dataplans, or even one dataplan which could be shared accross the range. But would that not open up questions of monopolisation?
January 20, 2009 @ 19:23
USEN is another unlimited (packet hodai) wireless broadband provider in Japan. I believe there's 2 or 3 others.
What this boils down to is healthy industry competition. The company that rolls up an all-in-one unlimited everything plan — wins.
January 21, 2009 @ 01:41