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The story
NTT Docomo announced it will raise rates starting December 1, 2026 for existing plans that are no longer open to new sign-ups. The eximo and 5G Giga-Ho series will see a ¥550/month increase, while irumo and Giga-Light series will rise by ¥330/month. On 5ch, the first wave of criticism targeted the “lure customers in cheap, then raise prices” business model, followed by comments linking this hike to the mobile fee cuts demanded during the Suga administration, framing this as the backlash to that push. Discussion also touched on whether the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications had actually approved this, along with complaints about Docomo’s network congestion and speed issues.
NTT Docomo will raise prices starting December 1, 2026, primarily for existing plans that are no longer accepting new subscribers.
eximo, eximo Poikatsu, 5G Giga-Ho / 5G Giga-Ho Premier / Giga-Ho / Giga-Ho 2 / Giga-Ho Premier, and OCN Mobile ONE (30GB) will see a ¥550 increase.
irumo (3GB, 6GB, 9GB), 5G Giga-Light / Giga-Light / Giga-Light 2, and the Kake-Hodai Plan / Kake-Hodai Lite Plan (smartphone/tablet) / (feature phone) / (SIM-free), among others, will see a ¥330 increase.
Source: itmedia.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
A ton of those are still going to come back as returns/defaults, aren't they?
Guess they underestimated the "carrier freeloaders" as clueless suckers and it backfired.
The second Suga's gone, this happens.
It's probably because of people who just hop from carrier to carrier for deals.
Honestly, the old two-year contract model with cheap phones and cheap rates worked better for most citizens and for domestic manufacturers.
Suga stuck his nose in where it didn't belong.
It's not the government that approves it, it's the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
Since when did the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications become its own independent government?
Do you even know what "government" means?
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is part of the government too.
Docomo acts like congestion is only an urban thing,
but even out in the countryside it's jammed up constantly.
It's probably all going to the salaries of the useless office workers.
At Docomo's office in central Umeda, Osaka,
during the lunch hour,
you see this endless stream of employees pouring out — like, do they really need that many people?
And they all look pretty well-off too.
They walk right past the cheap places to eat.
I keep hearing Docomo has the strongest signal and connects everywhere — is that actually true?
Like, Docomo supposedly connects even out in the mountains.
It connects in the mountains, sure.
Just give up on any station with over 10,000 daily boardings.
Docomo (official disclaimer):
In places where traffic concentrates — terminal stations, event venues, lunchtime — speeds tend to drop.
.
Signals have trouble reaching areas like building shadows, underground, high floors, and well-sealed indoor spaces.
.
"Packet stall" caused by forcibly latching onto an unstable 5G signal
.
povo and UQ mobile are basically the same under the hood.
If you're smart enough to understand the "topping" add-on system, povo is the better deal.
They've already raised prices, you know.
I'll tolerate a hike as long as it's capped at +¥330.
It's probably a plan that was an eyesore for Docomo.
Put another way, irumo was such a godly plan that they came to kill it.
SoftBank raised prices even on legacy contracts first, so Docomo followed suit and broke the unwritten rule too.
If you look at it as a forced-migration price hike from an old plan, you could argue Rakuten's "Saikyo" (Strongest) Plan did it first.
That "lure 'em in cheap, then jack up the price" combo is brutal.
Here I am, switching plans with tears in my eyes.
So Docomo mini became the strongest plan now, huh.
But why the tears?
If this kind of thing is allowed, companies can just lure customers in cheap and jack up prices later — total free-for-all.
It is legal, actually.
Nobody used to do it, but a certain carrier kicked that door open.
And of course everyone else is following now.
It happens in plenty of other industries too.
(Not saying that makes it okay.)
Well, you're always free to cancel and switch elsewhere if you don't like it.
This is an outrage there's no way to defend against.
It's pretty heavy-handed.
I don't think anyone's raised prices on an existing plan before, right?
I'd get it if they just discontinued the plan, but this…
Word is they weren't really into it from the start.
Well, obviously.
It's a plan they made reluctantly after Yoshihide Suga basically strong-armed them into cutting Japan's sky-high mobile rates.
Same goes for povo.
Kind of like how people who used to have flip phones (garakei) didn't pick Docomo next?
The smart seniors migrated over to SoftBank's "Smartphone Debut" plan.
Background and key points of this discussion
This price hike targets only existing plans, adding ¥550 or ¥330 per month, and specifically hits plan groups that have already stopped accepting new sign-ups. The backdrop is the low-cost plans — ahamo, povo, and irumo — that were born out of the Suga administration’s push around 2020 to force mobile carriers to cut their rates; many on the thread read this hike as “the backlash finally arriving.” That said, the approval for such hikes falls under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, not the government directly (though the Ministry is itself part of the government), so the “the government approved this” framing floating around in some comments is a bit imprecise. Unilaterally raising prices on existing contracts is, in fact, permitted under the carriers’ terms of service, and both SoftBank and Rakuten Mobile have already carried out similar hikes. Docomo’s tendency toward slower speeds during congestion — in both urban and rural areas — also came up repeatedly as a long-standing, well-known gripe.
*This article is an excerpt and summary based on the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “[Telecom] Docomo raises existing plan rates — eximo and 5G Giga-Ho +¥550, irumo +¥110 to ¥330, starting December 2026“.
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