OCgringo Posted November 28, 2007 Report Share Posted November 28, 2007 Hi are there cheap pre paid cell phones in Japan ? My friend is going there from Holland on Thursday and I do not think his cheap Nokia GSM phone will work , do they have Western letters or japanese caracters on the buttons ? It will be hard to send text messages back home with Japanese caracters on the buttons ! Thanks for the info OC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamui Posted November 28, 2007 Report Share Posted November 28, 2007 GSM phones don't work in Japan. The good news is that there are cheap prepaid phones in Japan. http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/en/prepaid/ The bad news is that they are not available for foreigners who are not registered in Japan. The good news: if your friend will stay longer and receives an Alien Registration Card it will be no problem for him to buy a prepaid phone http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/en/prepaid/purchase/registration.html The bad news: if he doesn't speak and read Japanese it will be a problem for him to buy such a phone, because the process of buying and registering the phone is completely in Japanese and the sales clerks usually don't speak any English. My advice: if your friend is only short term in Japan, but has some Japanese friends he should just ask one of his Japanese friends to buy a phone for him. That's what I did this spring. Even if he (or she?) has an Alien registration card he should go with a Japanese to the shop. And there are phones with English menus available... PS: If your friend is not doing only a tourist tour, i.e. he is going to meet some Japanese (privately or for business) owning a mobile phone is essential. If you had asked earlier I could have lend hime mine (but it has a Japanese menue only). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCgringo Posted November 28, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 28, 2007 He is only going to be there 2 weeks , it seems pretty expensive at 9 yen for 6 seconds, so 90 yen a minute or with out worthless US$ about 75 cents a minute Are there other companies or is that the normal prepaid price ? OC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.. Posted November 28, 2007 Report Share Posted November 28, 2007 Easy to rent a phone that will a) work in Japan with his Holland SIM card (provided he has int'l roaming) from DoCoMo at the airport: http://roaming.nttdocomo.co.jp/service/detail.html . Painless and not too expensive. Here's a new one I know nothing about: http://www.pupuru.com/en/pupuru-faq_en.html Cheers, SD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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