In the past Rakuten Mobile used to have poor coverage compared with DoCoMo, especially if you ventured into rural areas, mountains etc. Relying on it for GPS car navigation (downloading map information via Internet) may be “hazardous”. Has Rakuten Mobile rural coverage improved in recent months compared to the “gold standard” DoCoMo?
Am considering switching from OCN Mobile ONE to Rakuten Mobile.
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if you’re looking for ‘just enough coverage’ you could get away with Rakuten, as they also use AU’s towers, but if you truly want the most coverage you cannot beat DoCoMo’s network tower proliferation. A simple google search even in english with “rakuten network coverage map” brought up this https://network.mobile.rakuten.co.jp/area/ as a first result. do you even google bruh?
Why are you considering to switch?
Rakuten mobile still sucks ass in the very center of Tokyo
You can not beat rural coverage of Docomo, but improving rural coverage is actually easy compared to dense city center. So if you care about rural coverage and you are not avid hiker, who requires coverage also in mountains, then why not apply for second SIM/eSIM and test it for yourself?
On a side note – if you have glitch problems with your OCN’s SIM card, then why not to ask for SIM re-issue? As far as I know, they had actual issues with SIM cards prior 2021 such as excessive power consumption. Seems like they resolved it since then, so switching new batch of SIM card might resolve your issues with OCN.
Rakuten coverage is poop. I don’t get connection in the office in the center of my regional city, unless I put my smartphone in the window to get 1/2 a bar of signal.
If you want to compare the coverage, I use [this map](https://www.cellmapper.net/map?MCC=440&MNC=11&type=LTE&latitude=36.468402869975264&longitude=138.27166056857357&zoom=7.529396541861089&showTowers=true&showIcons=true&showTowerLabels=true&clusterEnabled=true&tilesEnabled=true&showOrphans=false&showNoFrequencyOnly=false&showFrequencyOnly=false&showBandwidthOnly=false&DateFilterType=Last&showHex=false&showVerifiedOnly=false&showUnverifiedOnly=false&showLTECAOnly=false&showENDCOnly=false&showBand=0&showSectorColours=true&mapType=roadmap&darkMode=false&imperialUnits=false)
Rakuten has surely less antennas than Docomo, but it might have enough where you want to go.
Why would anyone consider rakuten mobile? The only place I have ever seen anyone who is satisfied with rakuten mobile’s service is this subreddit. Every single person I have ever met in real life who uses rakuten mobile hates everything about it.
Rakuten Mobile is fine in cities for the most part, and their updated plan has unlimited roaming on AU but doesn’t make use of all of AU’s bands so it doesn’t have the same coverage.
I wouldn’t rely on it for rural coverage though. Stick to Docomo if that’s what you need.