The Great Japanese Communications Refresh 🇯🇵 🛜

I’m back from a mini-hiatus where I was trekking Everest Base Camp as well as other travels! I’ll keep writing regularly though. I recently made a switch in both my Japanese internet and phone plans on a stop back in Tokyo. Overall the process was more seamless than I thought it would be, but there were still some learnings to share.

Table of Contents

• Fiber Internet

  • Using your own wireless router

• Mobile Network

  • eSIMs

• Conclusion

First in tech news: OpenAI recently announced the opening of their first Asia office in Japan, along with a custom GPT-4 model for Japanese. There are various jobs available, hopefully this leads to more investment in AI technology in Japan.

Fiber Internet

Previously, I was on Softbank Hikari, which I initially got as they were offering a large chunk of cashback and extra electronics discounts when I was buying a refrigerator from Yodobashi Camera. The contract was for 2 years, with the construction fee returned through cashback.

After the initial 2 years of cashback ended, I was paying around 4980 yen a month for internet. I knew that I could save money by switching to a new provider with signup incentives. Common signup incentives are waiving the construction fee or returning the fee in cashback spread out over multiple months (if needed), and cashback. Some providers even cover the cost of cancelling and switching.

The best place to check for deals is Kakaku. You have to select if you live in a standalone house or an apartment complex (mansion), and it will give you a list of deals along with details.

If you have mobile phone service with au, Docomo, or SoftBank, or any other mobile network provider that also has internet service, often you can get package discounts with internet service (and TV service if you still sign up for that!)

In Japan, there’s a separation of physical fiber optic line providers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Commonly the services would be unbundled, so you would have a separate contract with the line provider and the ISP, though recently more companies are offering bundled services where you just pay one company for both.

The major physical line providers in Japan are:

• NTT FLET’s Hikari (NTT フレッツ光), which is split up into NTT West for Western Japan, and NTT East for Eastern Japan.

• au Hikari (au 光), which is run by the KDDI telecommunications corporation.

• So-net, which is run by the Sony Group.

• Docomo Hikari and SoftBank Hikari (SoftBank 光) which are actually just repackagers of NTT services.

For Internet Service Providers, you can see this guide from TokyoCheapo.

I’ve tried to sign up for Nuro Hikari multiple times, as it is a faster dedicated 2 Gigabyte connection versus other fiber connections which get shared amongst the residents in the building, but every time I signed up, I couldn’t get permission from the building to install it, even if I owned the apartment!

In Japan, IPv4 traffic is crowded, and you get much faster speeds using IPv6. Thus, it’s better to use IPv6, but since much of the internet is still IPv4, Japan has developed various technologies to enable IPv4 traffic over IPv6 networks. I found out that because SoftBank uses a proprietary technology, you need to rent a separate unit from them, called a BB Unit, for 500 yen a month. The BB Unit also serves as a wireless router, but unfortunately is not a fully featured and customizable router. I also had my own wireless router that I used just as an access point behind the BB Unit, but found it dumb that I couldn’t just use my router directly.

I decided to switch to BIGLOBE as I heard good reviews, the price was really cheap, and it would be possible to just use my own wireless router instead of a provided one. My new monthly cost for a 2 year contract will average out to 1893 yen a month after tax and cashback! After the contract is up after 2 years, the price reverts to 4378 yen a month after tax, at which point I would switch to another provider with new signup incentives.

Regarding switching: when you stay within the same line provider, NTT FLET’s Hikari (NTT フレッツ光) being the most common, there generally is no physical fiber construction work needed to switch your internet service provider. Switching from SoftBank or Docomo Hikari to another NTT FLET’s provider also shouldn’t need construction work. In my case, all I had to do was swap in the BIGLOBE router on the switch date from the Softbank BB Unit. If I wasn’t on SoftBank and had my router already set up with the appropriate IPv6 transition technology, it could have been totally seamless.

In this case, instead of straight up cancelling, you can apply for a seamless internet provider transition (事業者変更, jigyō-sha henkō). Go through whatever process your current provider has to do this, so you can receive a internet provider transition approval code (事業者変更承諾番号, jigyō-sha henkō shōdaku bangō). For SoftBank, while it was free to cancel within the 2 month period after my contract was up, it costs 3300 yen to issue the transition approval code. You then give the internet provider transition approval code (事業者変更承諾番号) to your new provider, who will switch over your service. This was not immediate - I signed up for BIGLOBE on April 10, gave they called me about the transition approval code, applied for the transition approval code from SoftBank on April 15, finally received it and gave it to BIGLOBE on April 17, and the earliest they could switch over service was April 25. It took 10 days from applying for a provider transition to actually switching providers, so it’s recommended to do the switch in advance of when you actually want it.

In case you are switching line providers, then you have to fully cancel the old contract, and time your new line provider and ISP to enable services without too much gap. Make sure to reserve the new provider setup a few weeks ahead of time as they can get busy or require some minimum time before setup can happen. I was able to sign up with just my residence card, they didn’t need a My Number card or juuminhyo (住民票) as I moved out of Japan and don’t have valid ones (just own a house and have permanent residency still). All the KYC was done through a phone app where I scanned my residence card and live captures of my face.

For more information on Internet in Japan, you can see the r/JapanLife wiki.

Using your own wireless router

Because Japan uses some unique technologies for IPv4 over IPv6, many foreign wireless routers won’t work to support this unless you put the DD-WRT or OpenWRT firmwares onto your router. There are domestic wireless routers that will work though. More details are in the r/JapanLife wiki, but it’s best to pick a provider that uses MAP-E or maybe DS-Lite if you want to use your own router.

Mobile Network

While I was still working at Stripe, I had been using SoftBank as my mobile network provider as that was provided by work. When I left my job, fortunately they were able to transfer the phone contract from a corporate contract to a personal contract so I could continue using the same number.

I was able to get a 1100 yen discount off my internet bill for having a SoftBank phone and internet plan, but overall it was too expensive. Because I travel a lot, I decided to switch to ahamo, a subbrand under the Docomo network. The pluses of ahamo are that the basic plan gives you 20 gigabytes of data a month for 2970 yen per month after tax. If you run out of the 20 gigabytes, you get limited to 1 MB/s a second within Japan, which is fairly good, or can pay for additional high speed data. Or you can upfront pay for 100 gigabytes a month for 4950 yen per month after tax. Domestic calls outbound are free up to 5 minutes, or you can pay for unlimited domestic calls for 1,100 yen a month. You can also use roaming data for up to 15 days consecutively outside Japan using that same 20 gigabytes of data for free. You only have to come back to Japan and reconnect on the network to reset the consecutive 15 days. This is probably the cheapest international roaming plan out there. Since I travel out of Japan a lot, this seemed perfect for me. For more information on roaming data, see ahamo’s roaming data page.

However, I found some limitations. After 15 days outside Japan, data speeds slow down to 128 kbps which is basically unusable and there’s no way to pay to get more high speed data. Also, it only covers 91 countries so outside those countries, data is unusable. I also found out there’s no physical way to call 0120 toll-free numbers in Japan from abroad, instead you have to find a non-0120 number to call, which is not always easy. Furthermore, receiving calls from Japan while you are overseas can get expensive!

I started to look into alternate or supplemental phone plans to solve the calling and running out of mobile data after 15 days issue. Here’s a comparison guide for the budget phone plans in Japan. I eventually decided to switch to Rakuten Mobile. One of the biggest ones for me was Rakuten Link, which lets you call numbers in Japan using data for free. It even works with 0120 numbers. On Android, you can even receive calls from non-Rakuten Link users while abroad for free! One of the downsides is there's no free (out ound, inbound is free) calling with the base plan, you have to pay an extra 1100 yen a month after tax if you want unlimited calling, otherwise it's 22 yen after tax per 30 seconds.

I have an iPhone and an Android, and I setup Rakuten with my iPhone as that was my only phone that supported eSIM. I tried to install Rakuten Link on my Android too so I could receive calls from abroad, but unfortunately it seems like you can’t set it up if a Rakuten SIM is not installed on the phone.

With the current Saikyo plan from Rakuten Mobile, if you only use up to 3 GB a month, you only pay 968 yen a month after tax. From 3 GB to 20 GB you pay 2068 yen a month after tax, then beyond 20 GB you have unlimited data for 3168 yen a month after tax. The only downside for Rakuten Mobile is that the network coverage is not as good as major providers.

For overseas usage, 2 GB of data roaming is free, and additional data beyond that is 500 yen per GB with no limit, assuming you are in a supported country (70 at last count). This is more expensive than ahamo’s roaming plan.

I may actually sign up for ahamo again depending on how often I am in Japan and use both ahamo and Rakuten - ahamo for the roaming data until I run out of days, and Rakuten as an extra free 2 GB and use of Rakuten Link.

To switch mobile providers while keeping your number, you need to get a Mobile Number Portability Number, or MNP予約番号 (MNP yoyaku bangō). Providing the MNP Number to new provider allows them to transfer your number over seamlessly. When switching, I literally had my service activated in 3 minutes through installing the new eSIM from Rakuten. They did not need a My Number card or juuminhyo (住民票) to sign up, but did send me a piece of mail as a KYC process, with my plan not being fully “active” until the piece of mail was received (though did not require anyone to be there to receive it). I already had my information verified through Rakuten Bank, but I remember for that I did a similar smartphone KYC process.

With a physical SIM, you may have some downtime while switching SIMs. The initial physical SIM is free, but if you need a replacement it is 3300 yen after tax.

There’s a referral campaign for 13000 Rakuten points back for new signups, but employees have a special 14000 points back campaign. This is my employee friend’s referral link for 14000 points back. Rakuten employees have a strange program where they are heavily encouraged to get signups for Rakuten mobile otherwise their KPIs look bad.

eSIMs

Not advice for expat life in Japan, but more travel advice: eSIM companies like Airalo (referral link) are getting popular as you can buy an eSIM in advance online and have it working right away when you land in another country, vs. having to find a store upon landing and waiting in line / dealing with local procedures. Airalo and Ubigi are the most well known companies, but actually pricing is somewhat expensive. I’ve found a new company recently, Global YO! (referral link) that seems to have better pricing overall, in exchange for potentially worse customer service. For example, a Europe regional plan with Airalo is 1 GB for $5, 3 GB for $13, 5 GB for $20 whereas with Global YO! you can get much more data for less: 10 GB for $8, or 20 GB for $15.75. You can also compare various eSIMs at eSIMDB. Check these other eSIM companies out next time you travel!

Conclusion

You can save money and find telecommunication plans that fit you better regularly re-evaluating and switching providers in Japan, plus the process is fairly seamless! If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out at [email protected]. Remember, you can also support this publication by becoming a paid subscriber or a Patreon.