Seven-Eleven is closing its free Wifi on 31st March

cloa513 · 28 Mar 2022

Looks like I have to get the Lawson Wifi app.

Petaris · 28 Mar 2022

Interesting. Just out of curiosity, are data plans still that expensive and limiting that wifi is needed somewhere like a convenience store?

musicisgood · 29 Mar 2022

Probably due to the seating areas are still shut down and people sit in their cars and use it ? Family Mart is pretty good. Once you sign into it, it remembers everything and when you go back into the next time all you do is turn on your phone and it is automatically turned on.
Some low volume McDonald's experimented with free wifi to get customers to come in, but with more people finding it cheaper these days to buy a bento box for under 500 yen, customer count is down so the 2 out of 3 McD's in town here no longer offer free wifi.
StarBucks in town has free wifi, but at 400 a cup of mud, forget it. I go to McD's that still has the free wifi and good ( I think, Vietnam export coffee ) for 100 yen , tax included with background music.

mdchachi · 29 Mar 2022

musicisgood said:
Probably due to the seating areas are still shut down and people sit in their cars and use it ? Family Mart is pretty good. Once you sign into it, it remembers everything and when you go back into the next time all you do is turn on your phone and it is automatically turned on.
Some low volume McDonald's experimented with free wifi to get customers to come in, but with more people finding it cheaper these days to buy a bento box for under 500 yen, customer count is down so the 2 out of 3 McD's in town here no longer offer free wifi.
StarBucks in town has free wifi, but at 400 a cup of mud, forget it. I go to McD's that still has the free wifi and good ( I think, Vietnam export coffee ) for 100 yen , tax included with background music.

The question is, why can't people use their phone data plans? Are the plans in Japan still limited such that you have to avoid using your data?

musicisgood · 29 Mar 2022

mdchachi said:
The question is, why can't people use their phone data plans? Are the plans in Japan still limited such that you have to avoid using your data?

The cheapest data plan that I saw yesterday was for 2 GB for 980 yen a month.
I got 25 GB plan for 4150 yen a month. Not that I need here in town but when out cycling for a day it comes in handy.
What are your prices in your country ?

bentenmusume · 29 Mar 2022

Petaris said:
Interesting. Just out of curiosity, are data plans still that expensive and limiting that wifi is needed somewhere like a convenience store?

mdchachi said:
The question is, why can't people use their phone data plans? Are the plans in Japan still limited such that you have to avoid using your data?

It's just a convenience. Don't places in the U.S. and other countries offer free Wi-Fi, too?

Of course you can use your phone (and many people are on unlimited data plans), but if you want to work on a laptop PC or whatever, Wi-Fi can be more convenient.

And you can subscribe to a personal Wi-Fi service for a relatively cheap per-month rate, but some people don't have that much of a regular need for it, so they'll just take advantage of the free Wi-Fi in coffee shops or whatever.

cloa513 · 29 Mar 2022

Petaris said:
Interesting. Just out of curiosity, are data plans still that expensive and limiting that wifi is needed somewhere like a convenience store?

I have a Kindle HD 8. I would go on Doco mo as per my mobile but you need a SIM for that.

Petaris · 29 Mar 2022

bentenmusume said:
It's just a convenience. Don't places in the U.S. and other countries offer free Wi-Fi, too?

Of course you can use your phone (and many people are on unlimited data plans), but if you want to work on a laptop PC or whatever, Wi-Fi can be more convenient.

And you can subscribe to a personal Wi-Fi service for a relatively cheap per-month rate, but some people don't have that much of a regular need for it, so they'll just take advantage of the free Wi-Fi in coffee shops or whatever.

Free wifi has been disappearing in the US. Some coffee shops and restaurants still have it but many places do not as phone data plans are widely available and generally affordable. Also, even if I need to use my laptop away from home/office I generally just use my phone's hotspot functionality. Wifi is more convenient but as I mentioned few places still have it, and generally they are "sit down" places. I don't recall convenience stores here ever offering it, but maybe they did at some point in the past?

bentenmusume · 29 Mar 2022

To be fair, I never used or even really knew of the existence of free Wi-Fi in convenience stores.

Living in Japan, I used it mostly in coffee shops/restaurants/public baths/saunas/etc. when I needed to do work on my PC.

And many convenience stores do offer sit-down spaces these days, though again, perhaps with COVID and all of that it's becoming less of a thing.

mdchachi · 29 Mar 2022

musicisgood said:
The cheapest data plan that I saw yesterday was for 2 GB for 980 yen a month.
I got 25 GB plan for 4150 yen a month. Not that I need here in town but when out cycling for a day it comes in handy.
What are your prices in your country ?

I'm paying $45 per line that includes unlimited data, talk and text. It doesn't include a hot spot tethering though. So if I want to use my laptop on the road, I need to find a wifi hot spot.

Seven-Eleven is closing its free Wifi on 31st March

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