Living in Japan

[randombs]

Ahoy,

Seeing as we've already got the Japan Trip Resource and Working in Japan threads, I thought it high time we had a living in Japan thread devoted to daily life stuff.

Ideally this thread will be used for everyday things like town hall shenanigans and tips for disposing of NHK guys.

So I'm in a quandary:

We signed up for Flet's Hikari with OCN in June:

• Y4,000/month(3,000 line rental, 1,000 for internet), 2-year contract
• 'Mansion Type', which uses the building's existing copper lines with an outbound fibre connection(apparently 1Gb line per 10 customers so 100Mb each)
• 'up to 100Mb/s each way' but it's quite saturated on weekday evenings and weekends - usually 5-10Mb/s
• Y20,000 cashback which we used to buy a fridge

The guys from the local cable company came round yesterday to upgrade our TV sockets and started telling us about their internet service:

For 2400Y/month(1,500Y less than normal) we'd get up to 160Mb/s with no building contention like we seem to have now. As it stands, a decent 10-20Mb/s connection would be enough.

Now, the guy reckons NTT will charge us about Y20,000 to cancel early and OCN shouldn't charge for cancellation but we will confirm that. If that's what it is then we'll break even after 12 months.

Anyone have any experience cancelling broadband here?

[kryss]

Only upgrading from regular broadband to flets hikari. It took until the very end of the call for the CSR to confirm I was the actual customer (which I wasn't as the account was in my ex's name).

You got 20000 cashback to sign up? You should obviously be expecting to return that at the very least.

Oh and with the NHK guys, just remove the sticker from your door.
It also helps to live in a building with secured access, as nobody lets them in

[randombs]

Gf called them just now and was told the total cancellation is 8,500Y.

They didn't mention the cashback so either they didn't realise and will bring it up if we cancel or they don't want it back for some reason(e.g. it's a deal with Yodobashi). I'm leaning towards the former but I got a free Galaxy S3 from Yodobashi when I signed up for Docomo and it really was free to encourage sign-ups. I got confirmation from Docomo that it wasn't subsidised or anything like that.

As for NHK, I thought the sticker means we have the NHK licence! Our place has the sticker so we left it on. At my old place there was no sticker and I used to get NHK guys knocking every few months.

[kryss]

Yeah, that was always a little fishy.

Right, I knew I had to mention something. You should make sure you're saving some of each pay to go towards your city tax. You should get a book with payment slips in May. In Matsudo, it was almost a month's pay and I would expect your's to be similar. I'm sure someone else can confirm but I don't think it was a lazy NOVA thing.

[randombs]

Oh yeah I've got my city tax slips already. It's about 13,000Y/month.

Got confirmation that we don't have to pay the 20,000Y cash back and we're gonna go with cable

[kryss]

Yeah, but if you're not counting on them making you pay for an entire quarter of a year that didn't get paid for anyway, things can get a little tight. Hint: they did this.

[randombs]

Those days are over for me but yeah it was almost a quarter of a year(mid-April start, summer holidays, Xmas) unpaid. Blimey, also I didn't start work until then anyway, if that's what you're referring to. Unless they base it on April-April financial years?

It never occurred to me to check about that but I thought city tax is based on the previous year's earnings so they'd factor that in, no? Unless the dispatch company was telling porkies about how much I was getting paid...

I have all my payslips from last year saved as PDFs but my year-end tax form looked legit.

[Yakumo]

I can tell yo now that cable company Internet is balls (J-Com I'm guessing). As for cancelling the NTT stuff, there's no way to escape from the cancellation fee. Pay it or stay with them basically. You could try and get them to lower the price. I've done that in the past.

[randombs]

Cheers.

It's not J-com, though. My gf's dad has been with the same cable company we'd be using for over ten years with no problems. I use the internet at his place and it's very good.

NTT cancellation fee is only 3500Y, OCN is 5000Y. As I said, I've no problem paying that.

OCN offered their 1Gb package but that costs 4500Y/month plus installation of Y24,000, and that's assuming we get the OK from the building owner and the landlord, either of which might say no.

Besides, our main goal is to pay less for the internet. I don't mind about the speed so much but I do mind paying 4000Y/month for what is often a lot slower than my mobile phone internet(which is already 7000/month) unless it's some ungodly hour.

Regardless, gf got trigger happy and wants to cancel today but I'll tell her to wait. Seeing as they're different technologies, there's no harm in signing up for cable while the existing connection is still going for a month longer.

[kryss]

I was referring to the NOVA collapse period, where they taxed us on money we didn't earn...or they put me in a hugely overtaxed tax bracket...Neither of which I would find surprising.

[randombs]

Oh, wow. I was told my dispatch company does a similar thing(that they declare our tax based on what they were paid by the education boards rather than what we were actually paid after their cut).

[kryss]

That is proper twatish. Another reason I'm glad I never went ALT.

[randombs]

As I said, my end-of-year tax seemed to mention the right amount I'd been paid. If they'd done what my mate alleged then the number would be a lot higher(around Y500,000 higher), I think.

I don't know the ins and outs and whether they sent a different tax form to my town hall or not but i sounds like scaremongering to me. Also, if they'd done something like that it would get found out pretty quickly. Unlike contract law, you don't need Japanese skills to understand the numbers!

[Ghost]

How do mobile phones work now over there? Can I get a SIM card for my current phone or would it be better to try and sell it off here and get a new one on contract when in Japan?

[randombs]

If it's unlocked then it should be no problem to use a SIM over here, assuming the phone is recent enough. I did that with my 4S. Plus it has the added benefit of not making a huge sound every time I take upskirt photos like a Japanese phone does.

I'm with Docomo so I can only speak for them but I signed up for LTE Xi (crossy) which allows you to use any unlocked phone you want. Also, it works with non-LTE phones so my 4S simply worked on 3G which is still pretty quick.

Basically, Docomo didn't allow tethering on their regular mobile data packages(Foma) so they blocked any non-Docomo phones from connecting unless they paid a premium. With Xi they allow it so any phone is welcome.

As for choosing whether to bring your phone or get one here:

I signed up at Yodobashi camera and got a free Samsung Galaxy S3. The phone wasn't actually subsidised; it was simply a freebie to encourage people to join Docomo. Docomo confirmed this when I asked them so I sold it last year for Y20,000 and carried on with my 4S.

I got a 32GB iPhone 5S from Docomo last December as they were doing a deal for existing customers(16GB was free, 32GB Y10,000). It renewed my 2-year contract but that's no problem. My monthly bill is about Y8,000 without any calls.

Bear in mind that a 4G phone from the UK may not work with LTE here so you could be stuck on 3G if that's a problem.

Whatever you decide, I heartily recommend JapanMobileTech which has good info on Japanese mobile stuff.