Ymobile Corp (previously eAccess), Japan’s fourth largest cellco in terms of subscribers, has unveiled a flat-rate mobile service, Telegeography.com reported on July 18, 2014. The serviceis reportedly one-third cheaper than plans offered by Japan’s three major mobile carriers – Softbank Mobile, KDDI (au) and NTT DOCOMO. Softbank’s subsidiary Ymobile, which was formed through the merger of sister companies eAccess and Willcom in June 2014, offers data and voice services for as little as JPY2,980 (USD29.41) per month, compared to a minimum charge of JPY6,500 for services from SoftBank, KDDI and NTT DOCOMO. Ymobile, which targets feature phone users who want to switch smartphones, will also offer special deals for additional data transmission to users of the Yahoo website.

Earlier this month, Softbank Mobile cut its smartphone charges by introducing a flat rate for unlimited voice calling and cheaper data plans. The change followed a similar move by market leader NTT DOCOMO, which introduced a flat-rate billing plan, dubbed “Kake-hodai &Pake-aeru”, in April.