I've used a portable WiFi on my past trips to Japan, but recently I've been considering just activating roaming on Vodafone instead of having to carry a WiFi device AND ensuring that its charged everyday.
I know speeds are pretty good there for native devices, but how good is it for roaming? I have no idea how roaming works, but I assume it's just jacking onto a nearby telco as if my own SIM is native right?
thanks.
How Reliable Is Roaming Speeds in Japan?
Lnauter on 27/03/2019 - 16:38
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Oh yeah, i'm way ahead of you. I always put on auto data caps on my plans. What about things like streaming video and even video calls?
I had no problems using Youtube while sitting on a train in Japan. Speed wise it's no problem.
I found roaming decent in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto (and the Shinkansen in between). Vodafone roamed onto NTT DOCOMO for me, and I've got speed tests at 50/10 and 20/3.
The biggest issue is latency. All your connections will go through a Vodafone server in Sydney, which means minimum RTT is around 300-400ms - and that's to an Australian destination! (I speedtested to AU). If you're trying to access a Japanese site, I wouldn't be surprised if you saw upwards of 500ms latency. This is simply how roaming works (apparently for any roaming connection, regardless of network).
It's fine for maps. It's fine for social media, web browsing, streaming music, watching videos, etc.. You might notice a slightly longer delay for initial page loads, and a noticeable delay for any voice/video calls.
It was much faster than the (heavily throttled) Japanese SIM I had.
I just put a local sim in my phone.
It was faster than the portable wifi included,in one of the Airbnb places.Unfortunately can't use a sim because I'm on a plan at the moment.
As in your handset is locked to that carrier?
Vodafone roaming is 4g in japan.
I'm with Optus and in October 2018 I used Google Maps to get around Japan, read news, change bookings, etc. It was always fast and trouble free. The only thing to beware of is that excess data warnings can be delivered hours late, so you can blow past your cap easily without realizing.