3G SIM card rental / data plan
 

Hello,

I'm planning to be in Japan for 10 days, and was looking at renting a SIM card for use with my unlocked U.S. iPhone 3GS.

Softbank could rent a SIM card but the data plans are really expensive. They have a clause states "We cannot rent the 3G SIM card to users of certain handset models or certain smartphones" so I'm not sure I can even obtain one for use with my phone.

This is the ONLY place I can find on the Internets that provides a SIM rental with a data plan (Docomo at $170/week): JCR - Japan SIM rental

Are there other alternatives that may be cheaper?

TIA,
LXNY

This sounds SO sketchy.

Hi MMM,

Which part sounds sketchy? The way Softbank does business or the JCR place?

LXNY

It is easy to rent cell-phones in Japan...it's not what Soft Bank does that sounds sketchy but your description of unlocking a 3G iPhone sounds sketchy.

There are American phones that work in Japan...you need to talk to your provider about their options.

Ahhh, I'm not discussing unlocking of phones... just stating that my phone is not restricted to any one carrier.

Then I do not know. You said "unlocked phone", so that is what I responded to.

I don't see why the softbank sim will not work, as long as its a standard 3G GSM sim it should work. But the thing is, I didn't even know that Japan support GSM now. I was ther ein October, and back then, its still WCDMA all over. I could be wrong, while I am a gadget geek myself, i don't know much about the Japanese market.

I believe the iPhone 3G/3GS is the exact same model whether you buy it in Japan or N.America.

I brought my Rogers iphone 3G to Japan and used it seamlessly via a roaming agreement Rogers had with Softbank. (Mind you, it cost around 100 yen/minute but that's a different story.)

If you get an unlocked 3G, I'd imagine you'd have no problems using it with a rental SIMM from Japan.

With that being said, $235/2 weeks is pretty expensive! At least you can use Skype to call if you have an unlocked phone. :)

Hi lxny

You can rent a SIM for free from the Mobal counter at Narita airport. I am not sure about data on it though, but I do know that they supply Softbank SIM cards.

I will try and do some research and if I find out about their data rates, I will post back here.

K ;)

p.s. their website is here: Japanese Cell Phone Rental from Narita Airport, Tokyo

Just noticed that it looks like I dropped a spammy link. However, I only posted a link to mobalnarita.com, the forum has automatically converted it into 'Japanese Cell Phone Rental from Narita Airport, Tokyo'. Quite weird.:confused: