>>Not like me... I held on to my IDO phone for five years, and get a
>>"whopping" fifteen percent discount on my usage rate, which
>>translates on
>>average to about 500 yen off per month. It took four years to
>>get to that
>>discount rate, and I can't see any other benefits of having
>>held onto it for
>>so long - other than I don't want to change my number.
I paid 12,000 yen to keep my same number when I upgraded my j-phone, but I
know someone who lost their IDO phone and got a new one while retaining
their number for 3000 yen instead of the higher typical charge of 10,000 or
more. IDO realizes, a user loosing his phone is more likely to switch than
one coming in and saying he wants a new model with the same phone number. I
wonder if j-phone and docomo have similar policies?
>>By the way, and this is apropos of nothing, I noticed IDO is
>>changing their
>>name to AU. Given that their EZ web subscriptions are getting hammered
>>compared with J-Sky Net and I-mode, changing the name seems
>>to me a little
>>like arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Unless this comes with any
>>particular service changes that I don't know about. Anyone
>>have any insights
>>on that?
Actually, I think this is a good marketing move. I believe they want to make
AU sound more like a tool such as i-mode has done, rather than a phone
first and internet capabilities second. If you think about it, all other
mobile platforms use words like "compatible" or "internet capable" "wap
compatible". On the other hand, i-mode is i-mode and all it implies is in
the name. my 2 cents
Received on Tue Jul 18 06:35:40 2000