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The story
At the end of September, Rakuten Mobile will lose part of its “roaming” agreement to borrow signal from KDDI. For Rakuten, which has relied on rival networks in areas where its own base station buildout hasn’t kept pace, this marks a make-or-break moment on the road to going it alone. The thread lit up with a report that an au store had posted a sign saying “roaming to Rakuten ends in this area,” along with the latest subscriber numbers for docomo, au, SoftBank, and Rakuten — and opinion split over how to weigh cheap rates against a spottier connection.
Delivered 9/29 (Tue) 7:05 AM
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Rakuten Mobile, a Rakuten Group subsidiary, will have part of its “roaming” agreement to borrow KDDI’s mobile network terminated in some areas at the end of this month.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Works fine for me and it's cheap — I don't have that many complaints.
But it might stop working fine soon.
Lucky guy…
They put up a map in the store saying "signal lending to Rakuten has ended in this area"
and tell customers to switch carriers.
Seriously?
That's blatant.
They must have really hated lending out signal.
These stores are run by disposable temp staff anyway
— it's all about contract numbers for them.
I don't need a store since Povo is enough for me. (Povo: KDDI's low-cost, app-only SIM plan)
The perk could get scrapped and the stock could drop to 300 yen too.
Roaming exists for rural areas where building your own infrastructure costs a fortune for zero benefit — using roaming there is actually the more financially stable choice.
At my parents' place out in the suburbs, Rakuten's straight up out of range
— and it's technically a regional city too.
Though I think Rakuten's fine if you're just using it for data at home.
You're mixing up the au/KDDI roaming (platinum band) story with the 5G story.
Typo on my part — I meant low-frequency and high-frequency bands.
And they're giving up on that not-so-cheap roaming fee too.
Building owners tend to sign with multiple carriers, but once you're the 4th carrier, it gets messy and owners tend to balk.
Is this going to go bad too?
If you're connecting on Rakuten's own network, it should stay the same
— this is about the partner network shrinking.
That's a Rakuten-owned area, so nothing changes there.
Re: #77
With this you wouldn't even need fiber-optic broadband.
Mikitani's "gotta have everything" syndrome flared up again. (Hiroshi Mikitani, Rakuten's founder/CEO)
They judged that running their own mobile network (MNO) was essential to complete the ecosystem tying together e-commerce, fintech, and telecom.
Every other company's doing the same thing now, but
Rakuten's execution is a cut or two above the rest.
I was skeptical for years myself, but they've passed 11 million lines now
— I think in the long run this'll turn out to have been the right call.
"Why" — because once this turns profitable, the money's absurd. Anyone saying to cut losses on the mobile business doesn't understand economics.
Rakuten Mobile's Mikitani: "Honestly, having people use it for free forever would be a problem for us."
https://k-tai.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/1409103.html
The unlimited plan is godly, but the other plans aren't especially cheap.
Though there is something nice about not having to worry no matter how many GB you use since it's a flat rate.
The low-frequency "platinum band," which can penetrate into buildings, is monopolized by the three major carriers, and every other usable frequency is already allocated to something — so there's no way to hand any to Rakuten. For reference, back when SoftBank didn't have a platinum band, they even paid to have other frequencies relocated just to secure one.
Didn't Rakuten get a government subsidy to try a Japanese version of Starlink?
If that pans out, they might be able to compete on equal footing with a whole new kind of network.
Rakuten's actually gotten pretty decent at connecting these days.
(Though at big hospitals and places like that, I sometimes get "no signal" while everyone around me is on a call fine.)
The same Rakuten that says "you're offline" when you try to pay at checkout?
Rakuten has no standing to say anything about KDDI.
au's been on a winning streak lately, so they probably don't want to keep lending roaming coverage to Rakuten for downtown subway tunnels and shopping complexes.
NTT docomo……91,291,800 lines (-1,784,600)
au (KDDI etc.)……73,814,300 lines (+1,053,700)
SoftBank……57,019,700 lines (+99,600)
Rakuten Mobile……10,750,000 lines (+390,000)
Rakuten is going to keep chipping away share from the big three high-quality carriers.
Once it clears 15% share, you could call it the "big four" carriers.
It's at 10% now.
Look at how expensive everything's gotten these days and it's obvious what ordinary people are thinking.
It's still in the 3% range though…
Their quality's only been decent because they were piggybacking on other carriers' networks — once they actually have to invest in infrastructure themselves, they won't be able to keep prices low. Isn't that game over?
Background and key points of this discussion
Rakuten Mobile’s roaming setup lets it borrow KDDI’s network in areas its own base stations don’t yet reach, and this round of cuts affects only part of that coverage area. The thread shows both anxiety — “is coverage really going to disappear?” — and shrugs from users who say they’ve never noticed a problem, revealing just how much the experience varies by person. There’s also a point about pricing: Rakuten’s unlimited plan is a genuine standout, but commenters note its other plans aren’t dramatically cheaper than rivals’, so the blanket “Rakuten = cheap” image can be misleading. The power dynamic between the carrier borrowing base stations and the one lending them — and the fact that an au store’s in-store notice effectively doubles as a sales pitch — hints at maneuvering within the industry that goes beyond a simple contract change.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (News Speed+) thread “[Mobile Phones] Rakuten Mobile Faces Moment of Truth Toward Independence as KDDI Scales Back Network Lending, Base Station Buildout Lags Behind Rivals.”
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