I've written several times about how to avoid getting gouged for cell phone service by major providers such as AU, Docomo, and SoftBank:
https://www.facebook.com/Kumamotoi/posts/1131066736966757
https://www.facebook.com/Kumamotoi/posts/1157172877689476
The issue is not unique to Kumamoto but I think it should be of particular interest to foreign residents, especially people who will not be here for the full two-year contract period that the major companies insist upon and/or people who have an unlocked ("sim free") phone and only need a provider.
I'm writing again today because I've had some experience with UQ, which the "SIM-Only Mobile Providers in Japan" page describes as follows:
"Not to be confused with U-Mobile, UQ Mobile resells Au's service, which makes sense since KDDI is a key shareholder."
http://www.mondaiji.com/blog/japan/general/10240-sim-only-mobile-providers-in-japan
Here's a UQ page in English:
http://www.uqwimax.jp/english/customers/
At any rate, we chose UQ because we had been using AU and had the impression (perhaps mistaken impression) that things would go more smoothly if we used an AU-related company. What I would like to report is that I found the support staff to be polite and helpful, but also poorly trained and not-well versed in how to make different phones work with their system. I'll avoid going into detail but it took over a week, with many hours on the phone and lots of going back and forth between the local shop to figure out what SIM card would work on our phone. Perhaps some of the confusion stemmed from our not buying the phone directly through UQ. Nonetheless, we bought a phone (an AU iPhone 6s) that the company had authorized on their web page. After going back and forth with support staff about problems related to the SIM card, I went back and read some fine print on the companies web site. There I found the answer to the issue and wound up having to teach the answer to the support staff.
I wanted to share this experience because, though I still believe that more people would benefit from avoiding the big three providers (AU, Docomo, and SoftBank), I've learned that it can be hard for consumers who buy a phone separately and then try to get it to work with a cheap provider like UQ. If you are going to do something like this you will first need to research your phone purchase and what services you can and cannot expect (is tethering possible, does the phone need to be unlocked, etc) very carefully.
I'd also like to make a comment about Japan's vaunted service culture. In general, I would agree that people in stores and in call centers who respond to inquiries and requests for help are very polite and that they try to be helpful. Still, truly good service in a technical field requires knowledge and expertise. In this area, I found UQ to be sorely lacking -- and this problem seems to be systemic because I spoke with many different representatives who could not provide the correct answer regarding the SIM card required in our case, even after checking with superiors. It reminded my of a very computer-savy student who came to Kumamoto several years ago. In a class discussion about Japan's service culture, he was very critical because of his experience at electronics stores. Perhaps a language barrier was part of the problem but his main complaint was that the staff didn't seem to know much about what they were selling. He would have preferred a surly nerd with bad hygiene, but who really knew his stuff to a polite but clueless part-time worker. During my experience with UQ, I too would have preferred a gruff geek with the right answers. ;)
http://www.uqwimax.jp/lp/uqm/01/
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