[shimo5037]

FWIW, while the price for data in Japan may have seemed ridiculous (and well, it is), it's not actually that much different from what you would have paid without a fixed data plan even if you were a local. Definitely on the same order of magnitude at least.

With the big carriers here you pay 0.05yen per packet, where a packet is 128 bytes. For example, looking at my bill from March, I used 6,971,294 packets (0.84GB) which would have cost me a grand total of 348,564yen (~$3000). I "only" paid 5200yen (~$50) for it because I'm signed up for a fixed data plan like everyone else. The exorbitant base prices are only there to make sure that everyone signs up for the expensive plans without too many complaints.

Oh, and did I say that all three big carriers have the exact same prices with more or less the exact same plans? :)

[joosters]

It's depressing to hear that the carriers behave the same everywhere :( UK plans operate in the same way. I don't think anyone offers a simple per-MB plan with a reasonable fee, it's fixed data plans or be ripped off.

I bought a data-only SIM to use in Japan, there were a few to choose from, prices were around £25 for a gig of data. Oddly that's actually cheaper than your plan!