While only 8% of Japan's population lives in rural areas, these communities rely on mobile connectivity far more than city residents. In rural Japan, Wi-Fi is often unavailable, making mobile networks the primary means of staying connected.
Mobile networks also play a role in driving rural economic development — enabling smart agriculture, local tourism, remote education, and other initiatives that support community resilience. Demand for reliable mobile service in these areas spikes during peak travel seasons like Golden Week and summer holidays, when city dwellers head to the countryside.
With this in mind, Opensignal has explored the experience of our Japanese users in Q4 2024 and Q1 2025 across several key metrics to quantify the scale of the rural-urban gap in mobile experience.
Key findings:
- Rural networks lag behind urban ones: Opensignal observed lower scores in rural areas compared to urban areas for Download Speed Experience, Upload Speed Experience, and Reliability Experience.
- Signal loss is more common in the countryside: Our rural users spend 0.9% of their time with no mobile signal, more than twice the rate seen in urban areas (0.4%), highlighting persistent coverage gaps in less populated regions.
- Mobile is the primary way to connect in rural Japan: Opensignal users in rural areas spend significantly less time on Wi-Fi than their urban counterparts, making them more dependent on mobile networks for internet access.
- NTT docomo excels in rural areas, while au — in urban areas: NTT docomo scores at least joint highest in rural areas for all analyzed metrics, while au is at least joint first in three out of four metrics in urban areas.
Essential but underserved: mobile connectivity in Japan’s rural areas
Across all key metrics, our users in rural parts of Japan generally experience worse mobile network performance than their urban counterparts — including 16% slower download speed and nearly 22% slower upload speed. This affects day-to-day activities such as remote work, navigation, and media streaming — moments when consistent mobile access becomes particularly important due to limited alternative options.
Coverage, signal availability, and reliability are also weaker in Japanese rural areas. Time with no signal is more than twice as high as in urban areas, while there are still some coverage gaps in the Japanese countryside. Reliability Experience, which reflects the ability of Opensignal users to connect to and successfully complete basic tasks on mobile networks, also has a lower score in the rural areas. All of these results signify that mobile users may at times face difficulties with connecting and maintaining the connection to the mobile services in the Japanese countryside, making it a very challenging quest.
The lower quality of mobile services in rural areas is especially concerning, as mobile connectivity is often the only viable option for users in these areas. Wired internet home access and public Wi-Fi may not always be available. The lower Time on Wi-Fi score among our rural users confirms that those users rely on mobile services a lot more than on Wi-Fi.
This stark disparity between rural and urban mobile experiences stems not only from lifestyle differences but also from contrasting approaches to infrastructure deployment. In cities, public and private Wi-Fi networks are omnipresent across restaurants, shops, offices, and public spaces. In contrast, rural areas often lack robust broadband infrastructure, largely due to high deployment costs, lower anticipated return on investment (ROI), and logistical challenges of covering large, sparsely populated areas.
Yet, the importance of seamless mobile connectivity in rural areas is hard to overstate — it plays a role in emergency communications, remote education, and economic activities like agriculture and tourism. Despite this greater dependence on mobile networks, rural users consistently receive a lower quality of service compared to their urban counterparts.
To close the rural gap, Japanese operators are looking to the skies — literally. With satellite and HAPS (High Altitude Platform Stations) deployments underway, Japan is currently working on how to augment its mobile infrastructure with Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN), to boost coverage in remote and underserved areas and extend network coverage.
Examples include:
- SoftBank has committed to deploying universal connectivity in the country and has partnered with Intelsat to build a hybrid 5G-satellite network.
- au has just launched a direct-to-cell (D2C) satellite service in collaboration with Starlink and Okinawa Cellular, which covers the entire country.
- Rakuten Mobile targets 2026 to launch a similar Satellite-to-Mobile Service in Japan with collaboration with AST SpaceMobile.
- NTT docomo has partnered with other organizations to trial HAPS technology — together, they have successfully conducted a 5G test in the 38GHz band from an altitude of approximately 4km.
NTT Docomo leads for mobile network experience in rural areas while au — in the cities
Speaking of Japanese operators’ activities to close the connectivity gap in rural areas — let’s look at how they fare both in the countryside and in the cities — and whose performance is the best. Our analysis has revealed two different leaders in these two area types. While NTT docomo generally performs the best in rural areas out of all Japanese operators, au excels in the urban areas.
Users on NTT docomo’s network enjoy the fastest average overall download speeds in rural Japan, clocking in at 46.1Mbps. Meanwhile, au and NTT docomo jointly come first for Reliability Experience in the countryside.
In urban areas, au comes first outright for Download Speed Experience, with a score of 56.6Mbps. While at the national level, our users in the countryside experienced 16% slower download speeds than in urban areas — these gaps vary at an operator level, with au seeing the highest disparity, of nearly 30%. In terms of Reliability Experience in the cities — au also takes the top spot, but it’s SoftBank users that see the highest gap in reliability of services between rural and urban areas.
When it comes to signal availability and coverage metrics, NTT docomo excels in both urban and rural areas. It leads for Coverage Experience both in the countryside and in the cities. This means Docomo provides the broadest geographic reach across populated areas in Japan. It also shows the smallest rural-urban gap in this category among all operators.
For Availability — the percentage of time users have access to a 3G, 4G, or 5G signal — au and NTT docomo are in a statistical tie for first place in both rural and urban areas. This way, their users spend the least amount of time with no signal in the countryside, compared to other operators.
Bridging the rural-urban divide: Japan’s national push
Rural-urban gaps are a global issue, as Opensignal has shown in markets like the U.S. and Brazil. In Japan, the problem is especially pressing because rural users rely more heavily on mobile networks, while urban users often supplement mobile with Wi-Fi.
The Japanese government is actively working to close this gap. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) leads the Digital Garden City Nation project, which focuses on subsidizing deployments of base stations in underserved areas.
NTN technologies — including satellite and HAPS platforms — are helping reduce the high cost of network deployments in sparsely populated areas. All major Japanese operators are actively investing in these innovations, making Japan a leader in hybrid mobile infrastructure.
Improved rural connectivity strengthens access to information and boosts local economies — supporting sectors like smart agriculture or tourism. Japan’s blended approach, combining terrestrial and non-terrestrial infrastructure, offers a potential blueprint for countries facing similar last-mile connectivity challenges.
Check out our website for other analyses we have produced for Japan so far — including our latest Japan Mobile Network Experience report — or contact us if you are interested in a more custom approach or in our solutions! Make sure to explore our Global Network Excellent Index to see how mobile network experience varies between the markets. Also, subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date!
Note:To classify Japan’s territory into rural and urban areas based on the population density, Opensignal applied the DEGURBA methodology.
Opensignal reports include main brand experience only, sub-brands are not included. However, NTT docomo's other price plans (eximo, ahamo & irumo) are included in its scores. Our metrics include all user measurements reported across all mobile technologies including when users have exceeded their data allowance — and NTT docomo’s data included 3G.
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