Per pay sim cards in japan?

Hello,

Im sure there was a topic here somewhere but i cant find it now. Im off to tokyo in May and i am wondering if i will find Pre pay mobile phone sim cards for my iphone 3gs that will allow me to use data and calls while in japan and how expensive are they?

 

Somewhat pricey, and totally annoying to get. You have to be a resident. (Yes, they TOTALLY fucking missed the boat... same w/ pizza & pornography). You can hire a mobile at the airport (and almost nowhere else, so don't forget) which is ridiculous for outgoing calls, but free for incoming. Not sure if you could yank the SIM out of one of those and use it on an unlocked iPhone.

 

As far as I know they stopped doing those prepaid sim cards a while ago..

As far as internet goes, have a read here as this might be an interesting option:
http://www.tofugu.com/2010/12/06/finding-internet-in-japan/

 

A lot of rental phones do not have a SIM, so not worth risking that, you may want to talk to your carrier and find out if they offer a roaming plan, if you are using it so people can contact you via call or text and you should be able to get emails and the like (although waiting until you get to your hotel room is easier) then it might work out cheaper to do that and buy a prepaid international dialing card to call people back on.

You can rent sim cards in Japan but they would be about $35 a day or $200 a week.

 

WTF is up with that?

To be honest it was mostly to get maps and GPS while i was out there. Roaming isn't really an option as its going to cost way too much.

Oh well guess ill have to buy a decent street map.

 

Softbank do prepaid SIMs and they also sell the iPhone. However, you cannot get a data connection on prepaid, so that is not an option. It's either roaming or become a resident.

 

Softbank does them... at least their website says they do, but there are so many hoops, nobody would bother (investigated for a friend that left his phone at home like a moron). I imagine when anyone tries to buy one, they pull out some type of notebook and blow dust off of it... similar to when these old codger taxi drivers attempt to use the Navi.

This is true, pretty much anywhere. When I go back to the US I'm w/o maps, which totally sucks big donkey balls. It will suck 10x worse here as I assume Paulo will be w/o the option to simply ask some jackass on the road for directions.

For that, you're basically going to have to use data roaming and if your carrier is anything like the rest of the world, they will rake you over the coals for international data. My J phone in America is about half the cost of US phone in Japan.

 

You can rent a cheaper sim that doesn't have unlimited data but then you are looking at paying $30 per mb....

Personally I would use the street map and just wander around, if you going for fun then it can be more interesting to get lost so to speak as you can find quite a few interesting places off the beaten track. I normally use Google maps or mapfan and then just print out where I need to go, not got lost once. I have a japanese mobile phone but again it is prepaid and just use it for emails and calls.

However a free program that i would recommend to anyone in Tokyo would be

http://metro.nanika.net/

Which is available for the iphone but is also available for nearly every other pda and smartphone (Palm OS. Palm Pre, Windows CE, Windows Pocket PC, Symbian, Blackberry...), once you download the Tokyo cities pack (it covers many hundreds of cities across the world but you only download the one you want) it will allow you to calculate routes from one place to another on the Metro, JR and private railway lines and it has every station in Tokyo and what is deemed the metropolitain area so as far as places like Gunma and Kanagawa, you can also get it for cities like Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Sendai, etc.

 

Yeah thats gonna suck. I mean i don't mind too much but it would of been nice to have.

Thanks ill look at that app now. Im trying to find some form of offline maps for the iphone but cant seem to find anything decent.

Yeah i got acquainted with street maps when i was on Hong Kong but Tokyo is much larger and more confusing. I know what you mean though about getting lost and just finding places is nice. To be honest i would of probably mostly used it to get my bearings and not really for a-b directions. Its always nice to have the get my location feature if your really lost though.

 

Softbank is full of it, for a couple of years they advertise their prepaid cards and phones and when you go ask about it at a store they just freeze and stare at you with horror in their faces and promptly gesture an X with their arms and say they are sold-out/out of stock/never had them/etc and run off to the back of the shop and hide behind the counter. (No, I don't look like a typical taliban terrorist or drug dealer)


I could really use a prepaid card or phone while in Japan since I would like to be able to phone some friends and text them or just be reachable...
This is so retarded :dammit:

 

I have two and my friend bought two in Narita airport just last month...

Where are you trying to buy them?

 

Maybe forget using the iPhone as a navigator as of course you would need to transmit data via network which is looking to be more trouble than it is worth.

Every TomTom for cars I've seen has an option to select travelling via foot. If you could borrow one (as 'net access won't be needed so the sim won't be either), load the Japan map, pick up a cheap plug in charger/travel adapter and set it to walking mode this could do the trick?

I went around Liverpool with a friend in a similar fashion, though obviously without a car or suction pod/dock thing attached! It worked quite well too

FYI we did drive to Liverpool though

 

Then you and your friend had proper visa. That's the first problem, it requires a Japanese home number and address and a visum (student, resident, work). Second thing is that outside of the bigger stores they hardly have the prepaid models in stock. I'm on my 2nd one now as well and it has always been a pain in the ass to get, compared to the ones you can buy from the supermarket or vending machine here in Holland.

 

I tried from the Softbank shops, tried the ones which are identified as having english speaking staff

So you can easily get these in the airport? How much were these cards?

 

I never even got to the Visa part, they just say they are sold out.
I just have the typical tourist visa but since I go to Japan once or twice a year a card would be really helpful.

A prepaid phone even better because I could have a proper phone able to send and receive messages/mails in kana.

 

No, I had a 90 day tourist visa, though I think they only sell to work visas now? That was 2008. I am now a Docomo subscriber.

Either way, it's inconvenient but there's little point complaining about it really. Either roam or use a map and pretend you're in Shenmue or something.

I bought mine there, on a tourist 90 day visa. I already had a softbank phone I had bought. They verified it wasn't stolen (IMEI check) and sold me a card after I handed over my passport. I know some Japanese - do you? Perhaps it helped?

In the UK one can buy SIM cards very easily from Tesco or where ever. I've never needed to and I can only really see it being useful for immigrants or people on holiday.

Remember that Japan isn't part of the EU and I have no idea how hard it is to get a SIM in America even.

I think the providers here don't want to bother with foreigners where possible. TBH it's a blessing that SB offers prepaid at all. Can't please everyone!

 

I can spit out a few words of japanese but I still dont feel very confortable speaking it.

I could really use a prepaid card or prepaid phone or even an old Softbank phone and try to grab a card like Martin.

Can anyone hook me up with any of these?

 

Sorry to bump this but I'm off to Japan in a day, can anyone hook me up or give me anymore help with this?

 

I'm quite busy at work Are you flying to Narita? Kansai? Just ask to buy a prepaid phone there, say you were recommended here by your boss back home or some bullshit and just say that all they did was have a scan of the passport and register it to the hotel they were staying at.

 

To narita, I'll try it before getting on the train, thanks.