3G iPhone in Japan?

[Bucci44]

Good Question

Have searched this thread, but nothing came up, so I'm going to post (sorry if it's already been discussed):

If I somehow manage to get my German phone unlocked, or just get a Belgian one (free for all carriers), and bring it with me to Japan, would I be eligible for a SoftBank contract, say, a one-year plan?
I. e., do they give me a Sim-Card, or do they give away contracts only if you get a phone at the same time?

Cheers, dsq.

I have also wondered the same thing regarding carrier policies in other countries (especially when using packets over the 3G network). In Japan, Softbank and Docomo both use 3G networks (for 3G iPhones). Either of these carriers should work with your unlocked 3G.

I do not know the answer to your question specifically, since I could not find anything on their policies regarding "third party" handsets; but here is the link to Softbank's and Docomo's English customer service pages:
http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/en/support/
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/support/inquiry/

The quickest way to get to the bottom of this is to contact them directly with your question. Trying to interpret policies on your own (that sometimes seem to change depending on who you are talking with) is usually a painful experience in Japan.

Good luck and please report back!

 

[keirnna]

I'm in Korea right now with my 3G...

 

[Bucci44]

3G in non-softbank zones

I'm in Korea right now with my 3G...

Are you incurring roaming charges? Is Korea considered part of the Softbank area? I am curious.

Thanks Keirnna. Enjoy your time there.

 

[keirnna]

Are you incurring roaming charges? Is Korea considered part of the Softbank area? I am curious.

Thanks Keirnna. Enjoy your time there.

By default the phone was set to not use 'Data Roaming'. I've only made a few voice calls from it and Korea is definitely not part of Softbanks area. I have a non-jailbroken iPhone and I pick up SK Telecom out here.

 

[DonSqueak]

By default the phone was set to not use 'Data Roaming'. I've only made a few voice calls from it and Korea is definitely not part of Softbanks area. I have a non-jailbroken iPhone and I pick up SK Telecom out here.

From the sound of it, you still use roaming (data roaming is just the -- well -- data...), so it might be an unpleasantly expensive experience.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with my original question, i.e. will an unlocked European iPhone 3G work with a Softbank sim-card / will I even get a Softbank sim-card without buying an actual phone.

EDIT: I noticed you didn't really claim to be answering my question in particular, which makes me wonder: Who were you posting to / for?

 

[keirnna]

From the sound of it, you still use roaming (data roaming is just the -- well -- data...), so it might be an unpleasantly expensive experience.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with my original question.
EDIT: But then again, you didn't really claim to be answering it, actually. Which makes me wonder: Why post it in the first place?

Just posting it for general knowledge for others who might be traveling outside of Japan in the future. I am still using voice roaming. That's for sure.

I pretty much know the answer to your question: Here is the deal with Softbank. You could get a pay as you go phone from them and pull the sim card out and use it. They will not give you information for their servers so you will have no Visual Voicemail and from what my friend that had a non-iPhone 3G phone no data access. The one saving grace might be that since Softbank is the actual vendor for the iPhone in Japan you may be able to update the carrier settings to work. You are not going to just be able to get a plan similar to the iPhone for only a month or something.

 

[DonSqueak]

You are not going to just be able to get a plan similar to the iPhone for only a month or something.

No no, don't get me wrong: I would love to get the official plan for one year. That is what I'm talking about: Bring my own iPhone (as they don't give it to gaijin with less than 13 months or even more than that left on the visa, at least from what I heard) and get the official iPhone one-year contract, paying full monthly charges.

 

[JapanScott]

1 packet = ?? MB

Has anyone seen any info on what a packet is in MB ? I've got the lower price data plan for my iPhone with the 20,000 packet limit. However, the iPhone's usage stats are in MB. I'd like to try to stay near my limit, but have no idea how packets translate into MB. Since the 6th of August when I purchased the phone my usage stats are at a combined 79.3 MB (9.5 up/69.8 down). What the hell is that in packets !

Anyone have any help on this ?

 

[macdigger]

Has anyone seen any info on what a packet is in MB ? I've got the lower price data plan for my iPhone with the 20,000 packet limit. However, the iPhone's usage stats are in MB. I'd like to try to stay near my limit, but have no idea how packets translate into MB. Since the 6th of August when I purchased the phone my usage stats are at a combined 79.3 MB (9.5 up/69.8 down). What the hell is that in packets !

Anyone have any help on this ?

Yeah.. this packet calculation thingy is pretty annoying. Why not bytes?? But yeah I guess they send data in packeted form, so it's the most common denominator. But come on.. why not bytes, anyway.

Anyways, 1packet = 128bytes, so 1KByte = 8packets.
There are 1024KBytes in 1MByte, 1MByte=8192packets
So, your 20000 packets limit equals to to about 2.44MBytes.

 

[mavis]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (16GB, 2.0.2 JB'd): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5C1 Safari/525.20)

Ouch. I've used 140MB since last week ...

 

[JapanScott]

Ouch x2

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (16GB, 2.0.2 JB'd): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5C1 Safari/525.20)

Ouch. I've used 140MB since last week ...

Mavis, what plan are you on ? Are you on the 'lite' version like me ?

This 'lite' plan is about worthless. I really haven't used 3G for my surfing. 99% of my use has just been sending & receiving mail. Well, month 1 & 2 are fsck'd.... but from here out it'll be no PUSH mail, no calendar syncing, no contact syncing or any of that unless I'm on a WiFi connection ! ****!!!

 

[mavis]

Mavis, what plan are you on ? Are you on the 'lite' version like me ?

This 'lite' plan is about worthless. I really haven't used 3G for my surfing. 99% of my use has just been sending & receiving mail. Well, month 1 & 2 are fsck'd.... but from here out it'll be no PUSH mail, no calendar syncing, no contact syncing or any of that unless I'm on a WiFi connection ! ****!!!

I have no idea - I'm on whatever the original, launch-day plan was ($60/month capped - right?) ... I didn't even know there was another ...

 

[moot]

I have no idea - I'm on whatever the original, launch-day plan was ($60/month capped - right?) ... I didn't even know there was another ...

There isn't!

There is just one plan and it depends on how many packets you use. They changed their plan slightly after launch. And again on August 27th.

The data portion starts at 1,029yen and maxes out at 5,985yen.

Basically it is just a marketing ploy, as unless you only make phone calls and don't get mail or surf or use Maps etc etc, then everyone pays the 5,985yen for unlimted usage.

See http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/iphone/price_plan/ (sorry, it is all in Japanese but the numbers are easy to understand!)

 

[mavis]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (16GB, 2.0.2 JB'd): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5C1 Safari/525.20)

Oh, THAT. Yeah, I probably max out at the $60 in a single trip to work.

But it IS a nice way to reel people in. SoftBank at its best.

 

[oftheheavens]

does anyone know how to get a signal booster? i have only been with softbank for 9months and renewed my 2yr contract to get the iphone. I live up in the mountains and up there i get like half a bar. In town im good but at my house it is rough. anyone know how to boost the signal?

 

[rotorzilla]

does anyone know how to get a signal booster? i have only been with softbank for 9months and renewed my 2yr contract to get the iphone. I live up in the mountains and up there i get like half a bar. In town im good but at my house it is rough. anyone know how to boost the signal?

yeah I would like to know about this too. I only get 1 bar sometimes at my house in Okinawa, but when I do my connection is good. I get 1.1 ~ 1.6 Mbps on the 3G.

 

[keirnna]

yeah I would like to know about this too. I only get 1 bar sometimes at my house in Okinawa, but when I do my connection is good. I get 1.1 ~ 1.6 Mbps on the 3G.

Where do you live in Okinawa? I also live here.

 

[rotorzilla]

Where do you live in Okinawa? I also live here.

in Chibana. How about you?

 

[BiginJapan]

does anyone know how to get a signal booster? i have only been with softbank for 9months and renewed my 2yr contract to get the iphone. I live up in the mountains and up there i get like half a bar. In town im good but at my house it is rough. anyone know how to boost the signal?

Well, you can get SoftBank to install a "home antenna" for you. It'll run you about 30,000 yen. Call *5565 from your iPhone or 0800 919 5522 to get more info/set up an appointment. Support only in Japanese, however.
I haven't actually done this, but I've been meaning to -- even though I live in Tokyo, the reception in my "mansion" is crap. (Could have something to do with the massive concrete walls...)
Anyway, back in this thread a ways someone was saying they'd done it, and it had been a great improvement -- gone from barely one to full bars.

 

[oftheheavens]

thanks for that info ^^. 300$ is kinda steep though for somewhere that should have signal anyways. My "mansion" is where the rich people move to get away from the city. I think the other service out here is AIU and they get good signal out here. Even on my 960H (i think is what it was called. the one where the screen turns sideways) i only got one bar and sometimes none. Anyways beggers cant be choosers, i will have to get my neighbor to call for me and see what the deal is.

Also about this 2.1 update do you guys think we will see it on our "friday" or theirs?

 

[ajmiyazaki]

GPS/Cell tower triangulation

Awhile back on this thread, people were mentioning crappy gps performance... I noticed the GPS on my phone isn't using cell tower triangulation to help map my location like apple says it's supposed to (at least in Kyushu).

Seems like this would be pretty easy for Skyhook (www.skyhookwireless.com) to impliment.

GPS/location services are still pretty bad here...

 

[oftheheavens]

anyone know when we are getting 2.1? Well i know no one "knows" but are we getting it during our friday or saturday (their friday)?

 

[mavis]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (16GB, 2.0.2 JB'd): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

anyone know when we are getting 2.1? Well i know no one "knows" but are we getting it during our friday or saturday (their friday)?

I'll bite.

I'm guessing our Friday, maybe around 10pm.

 

[breadbox9]

Seems that there is a probleme for Japanese user with the firmware 2.1
before when I would receive a email with emoji, it would come as a mime attachment and although I could not see the emoji, at least I could read it. now the mail arive and everything is just garbage characters. Softbank shops will have a tough time with all the complains.

 

[mavis]

Seems that there is a probleme for Japanese user with the firmware 2.1
before when I would receive a email with emoji, it would come as a mime attachment and although I could not see the emoji, at least I could read it. now the mail arive and everything is just garbage characters. Softbank shops will have a tough time with all the complains.

Odd, it works fine here. Both to email and SMS.