Phone for Japan

Tnetennba on 16/01/2013 - 00:30

Hello,

I'll be off to japan and south korea in about 3 weeks, and I am planning on using skype for calling home while at the hotel on my tablet (most of the hotels we're staying at have wifi or ethernet, and I have an adapter so my tablet can use ethernet).

I just have a question - I won't be at the hotel all the time obviously, as I want to spend as much time doing as much as I can. I was then thinking of maybe taking a prepaid sim of some sort to use just for texting to keep the family updated every now and then.

We'll be gone for about 40 days or so, so most recharges last 30 days, so that could be an issue. I currently have prepaid telstra as my normal phone, and it would expire half way - so I am happy to activate some credit on another sim or something half way through (or just not use a phone for the last bit or something).

Does anyone have any suggestions for good international usage? I looked into renting a sim or phone over there, but it's quite expensive. Most countries generally you can pick up a sim card and use it like you can here, but Japan have some odd ways of doing it, so it comes out quite expensive to have any decent amount of texts or calls.

Surprisingly, vodafone prepaid using international roaming lets you use flexi credit, so on a $29 cap, I could get about 130 texts or 50 minutes of calls - so far it seems to be the best I've found.

Anyone else got any idea? It would be much appreciated, but if there really is nothing out there it's not too worrying for me. Thanks.

Travel

Comments

  • m0nkeycheese on 16/01/2013 - 01:10

    Yeah Japan is weird for phones.. I think you have the right idea, I'd run with that

  • T-man on 16/01/2013 - 02:46

    This is the best solution for you: http://www.woolworthsglobalroaming.com.au/

    I used it for my last trip to Japan and the rate is quite good.

    • Daabido on 16/01/2013 - 10:28

      And what phone did you use?

      According to the website;

      "Japan & Korea

      In most cases, you will need at least a tri-band phone.
      Japan and South Korea require that you have a 3G WDCMA 2100 capable phone."

      • Tnetennba on 16/01/2013 - 12:08

        Japan and Korea only have 3g 2100. Most 3g phones here should work (like the mainstream ones - samsung galaxy series and such).

      • T-man on 17/01/2013 - 02:22

        I used iPhone 4S ans it worked well.

    • gabbasan on 16/01/2013 - 10:57

      $7 for postage for a Sim card WOW!.
      Not even overnight postage, it's 5 day wait.
      Must be a way of getting you to go into their stores to buy it.

  • sonicentropy on 16/01/2013 - 10:31

    I went last year for two weeks, I rented a sim card data only 1Gb of data and 2 weeks cost around $38 + $7 postage
    I used VOIP & Skype to make/receive calls. it was waiting at my hotel when I arrived.

  • muzzamo on 16/01/2013 - 12:09

    When in Japan I rented a pocket wifi from Global Advanced Communications. This was shared between my wife and I and our two iphones and two ipads.

    We put the iphones on global roaming, turned data roaming off, then used the wifi from the pocket wifi for data. The global roaming on phones were really just for emergencies (for example if we got lost from each other), or for when we went our own ways for a while - in which case we just used sms.

    You don't really need sms in this day and age to contact people at home - contact people at home using email/facebook messenger/whatever.

    Only thing about the pocket wifi is you will want an external usb battery pack if you want it to last all day. Pick one up from one of the electronics chains when you are over there.

  • Tnetennba on 19/01/2013 - 00:31

    Ok, I just popped into a nearby woolworths (my local is small and didn't have their global roaming sims), and picked up a $29 woolworths global roaming sim card. It seems to be pretty cheap and simple. Basically I only wanted it for texts, so 14 cent texts from japan is perfect for my uses.

    The $29 starter pack includes the sim and $10 of credit. Not ideal, but I'll see how long that lasts me (keeping in mind I will only text with this credit, not call). I will use skype for calls when I can wherever I can find internet for my tablet :) If I run out of woolworths credit I'll just recharge online. Yay!

    Ps. It came with a +44 UK number, and to receive a text it costs the sender whatever they pay for a text to the UK, which usually isn't much and on most plans is covered by cap credit or something similar (otherwise about 50 cents at most).

    • Johnny-Kun on 22/01/2013 - 21:49

      Just remember, To get the lowest rates you will need to manually select DoCoMo as the network carrier or you'll be charged heaps.

      Data Price Per 100KB (NTT DoCoMo) $0.09
      Data Price Per 100KB (all other carriers) $1.15

      Tell me how the service goes, I also need a sim for my Japan trip in March and was looking into Woolies roaming sim as their data is cheaper then other providers.

      Kinda sucks that its DoCoMo though, their reception is like Optus. That's what I remembered back in 06, hopefully they have improved :P

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