On March 23, 2021, applications opened for au's new plan "povo." Following government pressure, the major Japanese carriers all announced revamped plans at lower prices, and povo is one of them. I had been using au for 10 years, but the attractive price of 2,480 yen (excluding tax) for 20GB convinced me to sign up for povo right after the service launched. After actually using it, I have come to understand both the good points and the things you should watch out for, so let me share them.
What povo Offers
With no special conditions, you can use povo for 2,480 yen (excluding tax) per month for 20GB while under contract. One of its features is that you can customize the plan by adding optional services called "Toppings." Tethering is included at no extra cost, and au Kantan Kessai (au Easy Payment) is also supported. For other detailed specifications of povo, please check the official site. The points I personally think you should pay particular attention to are these:
- Carrier email ([email protected]) cannot be used
- Applications are online only
- No phone or in-store support
- Not eligible for au Smart Value or family discounts
The Good Points About povo
Smooth Migration from au
When I actually migrated from au, it took less than 5 minutes. (However, if you apply at night, it may not go through until the next morning.) If you are already an au user and use either the "au Nano IC Card 04" or the "au Nano IC Card 04 LE" SIM card, the migration to povo is very smooth. In this case, there is no need to swap out the SIM card.
By the way, the carrier name displayed on the iPhone remained "au" even after switching to povo. For other details about migrating from au to povo, please check the official site.
An Attractive Price
You can use up to 20GB of data for 2,480 yen (excluding tax). My previous plan was 4GB for 3,483 yen (excluding tax) — this was the price with the family discount and au Smart Value applied — so I get 15GB more data at a lower price, which I am happy with.
No Particular Issues with Connection Speed
When I measured the connection speed with Fast.com, it came out to 35Mbps. So far while using povo, I have not experienced any slowdowns or dropped connections. That said, depending on how things go from here, I do not think the chance of congestion due to speed throttling or an increase in subscriber numbers is zero.
Things to Watch Out For
The povo Topping App
I am not sure whether it is because the service has only just started and users are migrating all at once, causing instability, or whether this is simply how the "povo Topping App" is designed, but the app's behavior felt unstable to me. When checking the remaining data balance, the real-time figure is slow to reflect actual usage. Even after clearly using up data by watching videos, opening the app and refreshing the remaining data balance does not change it — yet checking again the next day shows the balance has finally updated. With au, the remaining data balance would change instantly, so I would like to see this part work more reliably.
The Staff Won't Help You — Get Through It with Online Information
povo is an online-only plan; even if you go to an au shop, the staff will not help you. The reason povo can be offered at such a low price is the result of drastically reduced labor costs. If anything comes up that you do not understand about the plan, you will need the ability to research and solve it yourself to some extent.
Summary
I had been using a carrier email address for a long time, so I had the hassle of moving my account information over to a free email service, but that was about the only troublesome procedure — nothing else came up that gave me any real trouble. Personally, I think switching to povo was the right call.
