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1. Comment - Japanese iPhone provider reduces its data plan fees

   (Aug 19, 2008 - 6:46 AM)

   I got an iPhone on the Softbank plan before the news was announced. I'm a heavy user so I won't save any money with this plan unless I go into hibernation or something. Last month, my data bill on my iPhone would have been USD3500 without the cap.
   
   According to my calculations, you would only get about 2.5MB worth of data for the minimum data rate. Anyone who has configured the phone for email or uses the browser will easily exceed the minimum in a matter of days or even hours.
   
   In my opinion, this new plan was implemented for a few reasons:
   1. All other consumer mobile devices in Japan come with a sliding plan like this. The iPhone looked expensive by comparison.
   2. The iPhone tends to suck the bandwidth compared to other phones. Once users experience the convenience, they will come to accept the higher fee (still not guaranteed to go above 7280 yen per month). Softbank would not have offered this low fee unless their projections showed that they would be able to convert a big chunk of the users to the higher monthly fees.
   3. Even at 5800 per month fixed data, it's more than most other mobile phones which top out at around 4700 yen per month. But this is a bargain considering that iPhone users will use more bandwidth than regular mobile phone users.
   
   Note - users have to pay 315 additional yen for the privilege of using visual voice mail. (They get regular dial-in voice mail if they don't pay the extra)