Cellular companies are bad. The Olympics are a shambles, and Pokemon Go is looking more and more like the start of a zombie movie. So it makes sense that all these events would come to a head with this gem of a news story.
As reported by Kyodo News, Japanese gymnast Kohei Uchimura is “hooked” on Pokemon Go, and downloaded the game the second he touched down in Rio. He forgot to check his data usage however, and like the rest of us mere mortals, was hit with a ridiculous cellphone bill.
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When he checked his bill, the Olympic favorite “couldn’t believe his eyes.” Sympathetically, his teammate Kenzo Shirai, said “he looked dead at the team meal that day.”
In the Olympic spirit (and certainly not for free publicity!) his carrier ended up reducing the bill down to just $30, which is your timely reminder that roaming fees are assessed on the basis of quarterly profits, not any actual cost to carriers.
This is where I should probably remind anyone heading to Rio for the Games that T-Mobile already offers all of its customers free data for Pokemon Go, and has extended free roaming to Rio for the month of August, which is nice.
But I could also remind you that you can delete your Pokemon app, lock your smartphone, throw it into the festering cesspool that is the Olympic sailing venue, and you also will not get any roaming charges.
