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The story
A July survey by MM Research Institute found that the average monthly smartphone fee — combining main brands and sub-brands from the four major carriers including NTT Docomo and KDDI — came to ¥4,198, up 5% from six months earlier. The increase reflects price hikes carriers have been rolling out across their lineups. The thread debated why people still stick with the major carriers: some cited the hassle of switching and worries about network quality, while others reported having already jumped ship to Japan Communications SIM or Rakuten Mobile. Some users looked back on past government-led efforts to cut mobile fees and questioned why the burden keeps growing on consumers year after year.
Monthly smartphone fees are climbing. According to a July survey by MM Research Institute (Minato, Tokyo), the average monthly fee across main brands and sub-brands came to ¥4,198, up 5% from six months earlier. Price hikes being rolled out by carriers across the board are spreading through the market.
An online survey of roughly 23,000 people asked about the main brands and low-cost sub-brands of NTT Docomo, KDDI, SoftBank and Rakuten Mobile. Monthly fees, including data…(continues in the paid edition, 907 characters remaining)
Nikkei MJ, September 6, 2026, 5:05
Source: nikkei.com / Original article here
What people said
That's heavy data users and corporate accounts. It's precisely because that segment exists that sub-brands can exist in the first place — if they vanished, the sub-brands would just turn into full-price carriers themselves.
Plenty of people know sub-brands exist but find switching a hassle, worry call/data quality will drop, or balk at the setup cost even though the savings would pay it back quickly.
I'd consider it if there were a carrier around here with its own antennas, but I'm not so hard up that I need to move house over it, so I stick with one of the Big 3. Got a problem with that?
The old days were better — free phones, or a 3-year lock-in in exchange for dirt-cheap rates.
Why does it keep tilting against consumers year after year?
That's the root of all evil — they killed off the ¥1 lump-sum iPhone deals we used to get.
Back when you had MNP cashback plus carrier discounts, the latest model was effectively ¥30k plus ¥3,000-something a month — that was when there was real competition.
Even Docomo was definitely faster back then than it is now.
Cancelled my home fiber line,
popped the SIM
into a router instead,
and now it's just ¥3,250 a month.
That's literally me — I also keep a cheap line just for calls, so I'm juggling two phones, which is annoying, but…
Broke as I am, I run Japan Communications (1GB) plus Rakuten Mobile 30GB (via a shareholder perk).
Rakuten might be reaching the end of its patience soon too lol
Rakuten Mobile stops short of promising 'no price hikes' — Mikitani's tone has softened since last year
May 14, 2026
https://japan.cnet.com/article/35247534/
take down the 'Three Carrier Brothers' (riffing on the novelty song 'Dango Three Brothers,' used here as slang for the Big 3 carriers).
There's a chance it becomes the 'Four Brothers' instead.
I'm genuinely grateful for Rakuten's price-hike-free 'Saikyo (Ultimate) Plan.'
Having people use it for ¥0 is its own problem, though…
and I buy a ¥1,000 data pack about once a month, so it works out to effectively ¥2,370/month.
I basically only use Wi-Fi for anything data-heavy anyway.
Wouldn't Japan Communications work fine for that?
That's pricey as hellllll lolololol
If it's just data there are cheaper budget plans out there, but for work I also need high-quality calls, so I can't cut ties with Docomo.
If it's high-quality calls you need, Japan Communications would do fine too, wouldn't it?
if I switch to somewhere cheaper, does the connection speed and how easily it connects stay about the same?
If you're heavy on data, a proper carrier might be better. But if it's mainly calls, budget SIMs still run on the Big 3's own network anyway, so I'd say there's not much difference from the original carrier.
Even counting Docomo and Rakuten in, it's bottom-tier quality.
What are you even using 300GB for?
Glad to see it — I figured there were no survivors left.
I'm on OCN too.
NTT and Docomo keep killing off their own good stuff —
OCN Mobile ONE, NTT-X Store…
In places like Kawasaki or Funabashi you can still at least get au roaming though lol
But it doesn't support eSIM,
so what am I supposed to do going forward?
Same here — OCN 3GB (¥700) + unlimited calls (¥1,300) comes to about ¥2,000, and since I've got OCN Fiber at home I never use up the 3GB, so it rolls over each month to 6GB total, and I still don't use it all.
With povo as a backup line on top of that, zero problems lol
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
This time’s average of ¥4,198 is a figure calculated by combining the main brands of NTT Docomo, KDDI, SoftBank and Rakuten Mobile with sub-brands such as ahamo, povo and UQ Mobile, so it’s worth keeping in mind that individual experience can diverge from this depending on one’s contracted data allowance and calling plan. Given that fees had once come down following the government-led push for price cuts around 2021, this latest rise is easy to read as things ‘returning to square one.’ Where the thread split was over whether the reasons people still stick with the major carriers reflect being ‘digitally naive people who don’t know how to switch,’ or a ‘rational choice weighing call quality and hassle against cost’ — circumstances that can’t be explained by a simple fee comparison alone.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread ‘Smartphone monthly fees up 5% in six months to ¥4,198 — price hikes ripple across carriers.’
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