Infinita member saves $16,000 on DoCoMo bill in one month

Looking at Chikara-san’s DoCoMo bill this morning made all our jaws drop in perfect synch. It said:

“By using the pakehoudai option [a JPY 3,900 service plan option for unlimited usage of i-mode data traffic] you saved 1.67 million JPY this month.”

Doing a quick calculation, we established that he had used a total 1.07 GB of i-mode data packets in January…which only cost him the equivalent of $32. Now, 1.07 GB of i-mode data packets equals VERY heavy usage, but it goes to show that flat rate data plans definitely make sense. It’s for a good reason that - even in Japan - the mobile internet in general, and mobile content downloads specifically, only really took off after au KDDI pioneered the concept of flat rate data plans, followed soon after by DoCoMo and the then-still-Vodafone SoftBank Mobile: freeing the user from any concerns whether he may have to file for personal bankruptcy because he looked up the train schedule on his handset one too many times is key to adoption. Non-Japanese operators (with a few notable exceptions, yes I know), please take note.

If Chikara-san were me, he would probably have thought, “Right! Now that I have saved so much money, I may as well go spend it.”

Posted by:Billich | Entry Date: February 27, 2007 7:08 PM