Tokyo has 20 times as much WiFi as it needs • Hacker News Board

Re: Tokyo has 20 times as much WiFi as it needs

#71

Post by johnwalkr » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

I’m skeptical that this plan will work. About 15 years ago, SoftBank used to offer public wifi using its customers routers. It was available in many restaurants locally, or you could pay to access all routers. It didn’t connect you to the internet more often than not, and I learned to not even try connecting when I saw a SoftBank sticker in a restaurant. Presumably over time connections had some issue and over time fewer and fewer worked.

More recently I had a WiMAX plan with KDDI. WiMAX worked great and it also came with nationwide wifi access. While this worked in cafes, even at walking speeds leaving it set to automatically connect on my phone would cause my phone not to be connected half the time as it would be continuously joining and leaving wifi networks or occasionally get stuck on a login screen. Again I learned to leave it off.

The free networks from convenience stores and JR work in a pinch but you have to stand still and remember not to set it to automatically connect because the login is not persistent your phone will happily connect which effectively disconnects you from the internet.

Also note that allowable wifi transmission power is lower in Japan than many countries. Between that and congestion you’re lucky to connect 20m from the glass front of store with a router in it, let alone in any other direction.

Re: Tokyo has 20 times as much WiFi as it needs

#72

Post by johnwalkr » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 4:15 PM UTC

pxx wrote: post #55

Liambp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"when my mobile net has run out"? Are Japanese mobile networks stuck in the 2010s? In Europe unlimited (or at as near as makes no difference) data has become so ubiquitous that public wifi is more or less redundant.

What in the world are you talking about? Taking a brief look at Airalo, it looks like it'd cost me $4-5 per gigabyte to buy an eSIM. I literally see no unlimited options on Amazon. Randomly navigating to telekom.de, I see a front page offer of €34.95 monthly for a five gigabyte plan with a 24 month contract term. orange.fr seems to do a little better with a €16.99 plan for 100 GB but it seems to be a promo rate and a…

Wow 20MB isn’t even enough to open Google maps, find a restaurant and navigate to its menu.

Unlimited plans usually throttle you these days too. I have €60 “unlimited” from orange.lu and after 250GB it throttles to 250kbps. At this speed hacker news is usable but not much else is. It’s €20 to add another 100GB. While waiting months for home internet to be installed I tethered to this and between WFH, gaming and streaming I usually had to top up 1-2 times per month.

Re: Tokyo has 20 times as much WiFi as it needs

#73

Post by Liambp » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 6:39 PM UTC

pxx wrote: post #55

Liambp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"when my mobile net has run out"? Are Japanese mobile networks stuck in the 2010s? In Europe unlimited (or at as near as makes no difference) data has become so ubiquitous that public wifi is more or less redundant.

What in the world are you talking about? Taking a brief look at Airalo, it looks like it'd cost me $4-5 per gigabyte to buy an eSIM. I literally see no unlimited options on Amazon. Randomly navigating to telekom.de, I see a front page offer of €34.95 monthly for a five gigabyte plan with a 24 month contract term. orange.fr seems to do a little better with a €16.99 plan for 100 GB but it seems to be a promo rate and a…

Prepay is generally a better deal in UK and Ireland and often includes unlimited internet for about €20. Here is an example from Vodafone (not the cheapest by any means): https://n.vodafone.ie/shop/pay-as-you-go-plans.html €25 per month gets you unlimited data in Ireland and up to 30Gb in other EU countries including Germany.

I have always thought it a bit odd that users with a monthly contract often pay more than "pay as you go pre-pay" but I think that is because it is mainly business and older people who opt for a monthly contract.

Re: Tokyo has 20 times as much WiFi as it needs

#74

Post by pxx » Mon, May 08, 2023, 9:56 PM UTC

Liambp wrote: post #73

pxx wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What in the world are you talking about? Taking a brief look at Airalo, it looks like it'd cost me $4-5 per gigabyte to buy an eSIM. I literally see no unlimited options on Amazon. Randomly navigating to telekom.de, I see a front page offer of €34.95 monthly for a five gigabyte plan with a 24 month contract term. orange.fr seems to do a little better with a €16.99 plan for 100 GB but it seems to be a promo rate and a…

Prepay is generally a better deal in UK and Ireland and often includes unlimited internet for about €20. Here is an example from Vodafone (not the cheapest by any means): https://n.vodafone.ie/shop/pay-as-you-go-plans.html €25 per month gets you unlimited data in Ireland and up to 30Gb in other EU countries including Germany. I have always thought it a bit odd that users with a monthly contract often pay more than "p…

Did you really point out a plan that has sharply limited data in the EU as some sort of support for your original statement that nobody worries about data in the EU??