Japan is said to be the country of undeveloped “Hotspot” infrastructure. This is one of the biggest concern and trouble for foreign visitor to do online communication in Japan.
When you search information about hotspot in Japan on google, 6000 sites came up on search result lists. Although mobile internet technology is developed steady progress, free public internet wifi environment have progressed quite slowly.
However, recently this wifi-unfriendly situation has been reformed stepwisely, some of large companies increase the hotspot .
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Public Hotspot (Wi-fi) in Japan
There are roughly 3 types of public hotspot in Japan.
Public hotspot provided by mobile communication companies
Basically, free wifi spot market provided by mobile communication companies monopolized by the following 3 big companies .
- NTT
- KDDI
- SoftBank
These 3 companese are provided with with the following names.
NTT docomo is “docomo Wifi”, KDDI is “au Wifi-spot”, SoftBank Mobile is “SoftBank wifi spot” In addition, low-priced SIM like “BIC SIM” also provides a service of public hotspot.
Pay public hotpost
Some of a company provides a pay hotspot service which costs your around 400 yen a month. If you you use wifi spot, you need to independently contract with a company which is even affiliated with the mobile company you have contracted.
Public free hotspot area managed by a company or municipality
You can find completely free hotspot area you can use freely without worrying your transferring data limit at convenience store, food court, restaurant, and other public places.
Advantages of public hotspot
You don’t have to worry about connection limit
One of the things you are sensitive about on packet flat-rate system provided by each mobile giants is connection limit. Connection limit has extended its range of selections from a couple of GB to several tens of GB depending on how much you use these days. However, there is often a case where connection data limit is exhausted by the end of the month and its connection speed is restricted.
Media contents like video sharing service make connection data increase with streaming playback and online games for smart phone have frequent updates and users need to download big data updates as often as a system is updated.
Lately, people distinguish online utilization depending on the amount of connection data between hotspot and packet flat-rate. Usually people use hotspot for using big data and packet flat-rate system for internet surfing or emailing etc
Hotspot is not in need of SIM card
If you have a smart phone without SIM or tablet for WIfi connections only, you can connect to the internet at public hotspot area anytime you want. You can also enjoy heavy media contents with even a smart phone whose connect limit is restricted for some reasons.
However, you may run a risk of violation of a radio law if your device isn’t attached with a sticker of “certification of conformance to technical standards mark“.
You can swtich wifi from a packet connection to public hotspot mode when your packet traffic is really heavy.
Even if you fall in the situation where your wifi packet connection’s traffic gets heavy, it is possible for your smart phone to access to the internet with comfortable speed because public hotspot area is a few concurrent connections for the reason of its narrowness.
Types of public hotspot in Japan
- Japan Connected-free Wifi
- Wifi service provided by NTT for foreign visitors. NTT wireless lan covers convenience stores, supermarkets, demarment stores all over Japan. you can use this for completely free.
- Seven Spot
- Public hotspot provided by Seven i holdings. You can use free wifi at shops, store and restaurants run by Seven i holdings. However, there is restriction that you can only use 3 times a day as one time for 60 mintues.
- at_STARBUCKS_Wi2
- Public hotspot provided by Starbucks coffee. All you need to use wifi is to register your email.
- Famima wifi (Japanese)
- Public hotspot provided by family mart. There is restriction that you can only use 3 times a day as one time for 20 mintues.
- Lawson wifi
- Public hotspot provided by Lawson. There is restriction that you can only use 5 times a day as one time for 60 minutes.
- FREESPOT
- Nationwide Public hotspot system that various stores affiliate with.
- docomo wifi
- Public hotspot provided by NTT docomo. If you contract with docomo, you can use even other mobile carriers than smart phones or tablet produced by docomo.
- AU wifi spot
- Wifi spot service provided by KDDI. This service is for only smart phones and tablets produced by AU. UQ wifi and wifi square is also available.
- SoftBank
- Wifi spot service provided by SoftBank. This service is for only smart phones and tablets produced by SoftBank.