Buying in Japan...using...then back to USA

[goofyjoemoore]

Hi Apple folks.

I'm living in Japan right now, will be here for a few years. I'm going to look into buying the iPhone this Sunday. I will be here for a few years, so using it here isn't a problem.

What I want to know is, will I be able to switch out the SIM card when I get back to the States, and will it be just as simple as that...

...don't want to spend the JPY 80,000 on the phone and have it be an expensive paperweight when I get back.

Thanks!

 

[benflick]

Do you have AT&T now,or, do you or will you have an AT&T SIM when you get back to the US?
If so, yes. But you'll need a DATA plan

 

[gdeputy]

as long as it's unlocked you'll be fine.

 

[Jayden0606]

In a couple of years you may be thinking about iPhone 4g! You should be fine though. It is tri-band UMTS so you should have 3g as well.

 

[heya]

doesn't he have to unlock it from the actual provider?

You should speak to your provider first about unlocking procedure..

 

[dontwalkhand]

Since you mentioned years, there will probably be something better out by the time you come back to the United States anyway. iPhone 4 or 5G even.

 

[oftheheavens]

take note from someone here in Japan and not people living in the states. The 3G will not work back home. It uses different signal here and we do not have any type of EDGE network. All we have here is 3G. So if you are going to be here for a few years like me then you will be okay.

O one more thing just incase your japanese is not that great, when you go to softbank to get one be prepaired to pay 35$ a month for 26months for your iphone...go ahead and add that up. that is what we pay for an iphone here.

 

[mavis]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (16GB, 2.1 PWNed): 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)

doesn't he have to unlock it from the actual provider?

You should speak to your provider first about unlocking procedure..

There is no provision for unlocking here. The provider is SoftBank - they're a Japanese company, which means the staff are utterly CLUELESS. That's not to say they're stupid, just that if something isn't expressly laid out in the manual, they are simply not able/authorized to help you.