Observations on the lack of “free” WiFi in Japan

Above is pictured a sign at (one of) my local Starbucks. Free WiFi is a rare thing here in Japan, at least in the form it takes in North America. There is no lack of internet access points here, but they require you to be able to login using either your home internet providers credentials, or your mobile phone provider credentials. A third way to gain access is to pay a monthly fee to a WiFi subscription service such as Wifine. None of these options is truly “free” WiFi as known in North America, since the fees for access points are buried in your monthly internet fees. That said, the form of free WiFi that we enjoy at the local café in Vancouver is not necessary here, as most people have some sort of internet provider. Though it does greatly inconvenience travellers such as myself, who have no domestic internet service profile.

It might seem extremely inefficient to serve internet access in this way. Rather than hooking up a WiFi basestation, or getting sponsored free WiFi (as Bell does for Starbucks in Canada), establishments have to make partnerships with a spread of service providers to best serve their customers. It isn’t like they have to setup different WiFi basestations, as logins all seem to be handled through web forms. Still though, it is not as straight forward. There must be some value in the complexity.

It is often said that your ISP knows more about you than Google or Facebook or any other web service. In Japan your internet service provider also knows where and when you are accessing the net when away from your home. It is just like how credit card companies can track your usage and use that information to target campaigns and products. I am not sure if the Japanese ISPs are doing this, but it seems that there is value in gathering this type of information. If they see you are accessing the net mostly in the morning at Starbucks, they could bundle some coupons for breakfast rolls in future promotion.

All this said, I am still boned. As someone outside of the system, my information is not valuable, and thus I do not get the benefit on “free” WiFi in Japan, or any breakfast roll coupons. Not that I am bitter…

Smartphone penetration in Japan: Some numbers

New Straits Times quotes MMRI:

Japan’s smart phone sales — 23.3 million this year — account for 56 per cent of the total mobile phone sales of the year

Yet, TomiAhonen Consulting, based on Ipsos data, ranks Japan’s smartphone penetration at just 14% per capita, tied 33rd with Brazil and Romania in a ranking of 42 countries. They follow that number with a caveat:

Japan and S Korea: These numbers are NOT indicative of how advanced phones are in those countries, while technically are reasonably accurate measures of ‘only smartphones’

Korea is ranked 20th, with 34%. It must help with penetration when some of your national champions are some of the top handset makers. (Canada, a particularly backwards nation when it comes to mobile, is 21st with 30% penetration.)

Japan on the other hand is still struggling with smartphone innovation (see my old post about this topic here). From the Straits times:

Commentators suggest phone producers need to install a system so that users cannot use the Internet while walking.