Mobile roaming in Japan

[Golf888]

Plan for a trip to Japan and see what the options are for mobile roaming...
know that no gsm in japan, need to use WCDMA

notice that ntt docomo has a service for inbound roaming where we can
rent a LG U8500 :-
NTT DoCoMo Handset Rental for Inbound Roamers

I use Optus postpaid here and Optus seems to be listed here:-
NTT DoCoMo Handset Rental for Inbound Roamers

- Do i just move my Optus SIM to the LG U8500?
- anyone tried this service before?

 

[Mal]

Does your mobile have 3G? It should work fine while roaming if that's the case.

There's another thread here: http://www.frequentflyer.com.au/community/communication-and-internet/roaming-in-japan-3g-7454.html

which has some good information.

 

[Golf888]

thanks for the thread tip Mal
.
current phone is only tri-band gsm

 

[Bundy Bear]

Tri band won't do; as you mentioned you need a 3G phone.

Some of the older sim cards don't always just plug into a 3G phone, you might have a 3G phone but you usually have to upgrade the sim card as well.

Optus on a 3G phone will work it just might take a day or 2 to work. When I travelled to Japan on an Telstra 3G Nokia N73 the phone worked straight away but kept displaying some sort of error(forgot the exact message); after about a day in Japan I get the usual Telstra SMS welcoming me to Japan, usually you get them within hours when travelling to some countries. I think New Zealand I got a welcome SMS within about a 1 minute of turning the phone on in New Zealand.

 

[Keith009]

I've gone to Japan twice with 2 different 3G phones - Optus network. Both worked fine.

 

[Commuter]

I went to Japan on Telstra roaming on a 3G phone and it worked fine.

If you need to rent one at 500 yen per day, and you're staying there for a while, you might like to consider upgrading your phone to 3G on one of the plans - some plans will let you have one free of charge.

Just for the information of other people contemplating roaming in Japan, a caution.

I made the mistake of leaving the BlackBerry Connect on. It kept connecting and disconnecting, resulting in quite a hefty data roaming charge (if it stayed connected, it wouldn't have been so expensive). It wasn't even supposed to be BB compatible in Japan according to Telstra website, so I didn't think about it and unwittingly left it on. So, if you have a BlackBerry-compatible device, make sure you turn the BB function off unless you really need to leave it on.