What is the first thing you do when you arrive in a new country? Make your way to the taxi stand and head off to your hotel? Do you grab a bite to eat at a food stand? Perhaps you stop off at a kiosk and buy a local sim card?
Apparently buying a new sim card slipped the mind of Kohei Uchimura, Japanese gymnast at the Rio Olympics. Like most people, Kohei was excited by the release of Niantics insanely popular game, Pokemon Go. Perhaps too excited.
Somehow, in the midst of his training regimen, the decorated gymnast found a way to rack up 500,000 yen in data charges. 500,000 yen translates to roughly $5000. A startling sum of money to spend playing a game. It seems Kohei Uchimura was unaware of his cellular providers policy. Rather than a flat rate for data, he was charged per MB (or GB) used. That is a lot of Pokemon Go no matter how you look at it.
Mr. Uchimura is a highly decorated gymnast who has won medals at the last two Olympics. He went home with a gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics and a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. This time around he is heavily favored to take the gold. But has the Pokemon Go craze caused him to lose focus on the Rio Olympics? Teammates reported that he looked like a dead man once he learned about his charges.
Thankfully the service provider took sympathy and graciously reduced his bill. After discussing the situation Uchimura’s bill was reduced to a mere 3,000 yen ($30). Hopefully the Olympian can sleep easy now.
The low-cost carrier T-Mobile recently announced that their customers will be able to play Pokemon Go without using their data allowance. The move is sure to attract many new customers who will use the plan to save money on their data usage. The Pokemon Go app is being released in more and more countries every week, perhaps we will see more phone companies announce free data for Pokemon Go.
Best of luck to Kohei Uchimura at the Rio Olympics. Hopefully he will bring home a gold medal or two in addition to his new pokemon.