How is the internet speed in Japan?
Latest update time：2024-02-22
Reads：
During the Spring Festival, Xiao Zaojun went to Japan with his family for a New Year's Eve trip.
As a veteran in the communications industry, I paid special attention to the local communications infrastructure and network experience.
Today, I will simply talk to you about my feelings.
█Mobile
communication network
First, let’s talk about the mobile network experience.
There are three ways to use mobile phone networks when traveling to Japan:
1. Start roaming directly
Domestic mobile phone numbers can directly activate roaming, and you can make calls and surf the Internet in Japan.
This is the most convenient, but it is expensive and has very little traffic.
Taking my telecommunications number as an example, there are a variety of daily or monthly traffic packages available, ranging from 99 yuan for 4 days, or 23.75 yuan for a single day.
Notice! ! !
This kind of traffic package
is called "
unlimited traffic
"
. In fact,
it only has
200MB per day.
Once the amount
is exceeded
, the speed will
be limited, which is a big pitfall
.
(It is also important to note that some mobile phone cards do not support international roaming, and you need to go to the business office to change the SIM card. For details, you can ask the operator’s customer service.
)
2. Apply for a card locally in Japan
The three major operators in the Japanese communications market are NTT DoCoMo, Softbank and au.
It's a little troublesome to apply for a card locally, and the short-term stay is not long, so it doesn't make much sense to apply for a card. Local cards are also more expensive.
As shown in the figure below, au operator, 5G unlimited package, with a 30GB cap, costs about 5,000 yen (250 yuan) per month.
3. Buy data card on Taobao
This is the most convenient and quickest method. 20G for 15 days is about 100 yuan, which is generally enough.
What I use is the 3rd method.
I bought 2 cards on Taobao
After verification, this kind of card is a card of Chunghwa Telecom of Taiwan, China, used for roaming in Japan, and connected to the network of operator au.
It can be seen from the software that it is basically dominated by Band1 frequency band (4G LTE), 2.1GHz. The logo displayed is KDDI (au parent company
)
:
China Telecom's card, roaming to Japan, accesses NTT docomo's network:
When roaming in Japan, Taobao's traffic is stuck, sometimes 4G, sometimes 5G, each taking half of the time.
This trip passed through three cities: Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo. Overall, 5G coverage is not very high, and the gap with domestic coverage is relatively large. There is no problem when posting to Moments and the like normally, but watching videos still feels not smooth.
I originally wanted to do a speed test, but the servers of several speed test APPs (speedtest, Telnettest) are all in China, so the speed test is of little significance, so I didn’t take the test.
█Communication
infrastructure
In Japan, the number of base stations you can see every day is far less than that in China. Even in commercial areas or scenic spots, it is not easy to see base stations.
I don’t know if they are hiding well or if the number of base stations is really small.
Occasionally I will take pictures when I see them:
I feel that the downtilt angle of Japanese base station antennas is generally not much, almost vertical. Don't know why.
almost no dip
A rare barrel antenna appearance in China
It’s still cylindrical, with almost no plate antenna visible.
There are several types of antennas in the picture. How many do you recognize?
The one on the far right, which many experienced communicators in China must recognize, is the same 8-channel antenna used by PHS.
Compared to mobile communication base station antennas, what I see more are a large number of Yagi antennas, satellite antennas, and microwave antennas.
Yagi antenna (right, 2)
Japan is indeed the "home" of the Yagi antenna (in the 1920s, Yagi Shuji and Uda Taro of Tohoku University jointly invented this kind of antenna, which is called the "Yagi-Uda antenna", or "Yagi antenna" for short). It is everywhere This antenna is visible.
The Yagi antenna has a simple structure, high gain, and strong directivity. It is mainly used to receive TV signals (it belongs to DTMB, terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting technology), and is occasionally used by radio enthusiasts. In the 1980s and 1990s, this kind of antenna was also very common in our country.
I also saw a large number of satellite dishes (satellite dishes) in Japan, which also serve satellite TV signal reception.
There are so many, it’s like trypophobia
It can be seen from this that for a long time, television signals were transmitted through wireless communication.
In China, it is illegal to install satellite TV without permission. Moreover, we switched to the cable digital TV technology route very early and basically abandoned the TV signal antenna on the rooftop. (Actually, the signal is still there. If you install an outdoor antenna, you can still watch it, but there are not many channels.)
There are many microwave antennas in Japan. I guess it has something to do with the complexity of local engineering construction. Microwave construction is relatively simple and avoids cable laying projects.
Microwave antennas are very common in the local area
microwave antenna
It is worth mentioning that in Japan, many iron towers are painted with this kind of red and white paint, which looks very beautiful and neat.
In comparison, Japan has too many telephone poles and flying wires. Not only are they numerous, but they are also messy.
Here are two pictures for everyone to feel free to experience:
If this is a low-level economy, it will collapse.
Let’s talk about indoor broadband. I stayed in B&Bs in Osaka and Kyoto, and I also carefully paid attention to their broadband access equipment in restaurants.
I found that the equipment models are generally older. The broadband speed of the B&B is pretty good, a few hundred Mbps.
Broadband access equipment:
It's from Cisco, I don't know what it is.
It's from NTT, it seems to be a customized model.
Finally, let’s talk about the network experience on transportation.
Let’s talk about the Shinkansen. On the Shinkansen, the network experience is not bad, and it is OK to send pictures or check Moments on the mobile phone. If you enter the tunnel, you will be blinded.
However, the Shinkansen provides high-speed rail Wi-Fi. You can use it directly after simply registering, and the network is not bad.
Shinkansen Free Wi-Fi
█Conclusion
In general, I personally feel that Japan's communication infrastructure is indeed not as developed as ours. The 5G network coverage is not too high, but the 4G coverage is pretty good.
Japan's communications infrastructure, like their other public facilities, has a strong sense of "age". Their facilities were generally built earlier, but because they were built earlier, they age faster and now they appear "old".
In comparison, much of China's infrastructure was built in the past few years and is updated quickly, making it look very new.
A developed network will bring support to various industries in society. From the perspective of tourism alone, Japan’s mobile payment is far inferior to China’s.
Some stores in tourist attractions, chain supermarkets, or large stores have a variety of payment methods, including Alipay and WeChat. But stores that are a little bit more remote, or small stores owned by locals, are not suitable and only accept cash (cash only) or credit cards. Some even don’t support credit cards.
Taxis in Japan basically only accept cash.
This is very unfamiliar to us Chinese tourists. When I travel, I often have a lot of change coins in my pocket, which is very troublesome.
Every time at this time, my family and I will sigh that mobile payment is the most convenient in China, and we can travel all over the world with one mobile phone.
Okay, the above is my experience of the local communication network during my trip to Japan. It’s just my personal opinion, I haven’t been to many places, and it may not be accurate. for reference only.
Thanks!
京公网安备 11010802033920号