Mary2Go

I have read several folks suggestions for getting a cell phone for my Japan trip but DH thinks there is a cell phone kiosk in the airport where one can pickup & dropoff a temporary cell phone. Anyone familiar with such a thing?

emd

There are several manned stands or kiosks where you can rent a phone at Narita and drop off. My experience has been that the workers do not speak English very well at those stands though.

Mary2Go

Anyone know the name of these companies? Personally, I would rather plan ahead, but as I vented in another post, I am not the one planning this trip!

emd

Vodaphpne. But I stopped there and they didn't speak English (and they did not offer to call anyone to translate, adn they have so many plans that I had no way of knowing which one I woudl be signing up for) so I decided to wait til I got into Tokyo and deal w/getting a Vodaphone phone. Bad move, as it took half a day (9 am til 1 pm) to apply and ait til they checked me out and did all the paperwork and gave me a phone at a Vodaphone office close to my hotel (and they also did not speak English but at least got a person on the phone who did).

Tell DH that I (who have rented 4 phones on 2 different trips, two weeks each time) HIGHLY recommend applying to get a phone online before you go and having it delivered to your hotel and waiting for you when you get there from the services that do that. Same price as all the headache in the scenarios above.

emd

That should read "Vodaphone"

emd

And I checked at two other cell phopne rental stands at the airport and no one spoke English at those either.

Mary2Go

emd,
It's funny,I was using your previous post as my reasoning behind using Rentafone. DH's motto is "Why plan ahead?" Makes me crazy since I am a bit obsessive about planning certain things ahead. I am especially concerned about an easy to use cell phone because we are leaving our 19 yr old son alone in Tokyo for another week after which he will fly to Korea to see his older brother who has accepted a teaching job. I won't feel comfortable unless I know we can keep in contact. We will be stopping on the way home in Hawaii and I want to be able to enjoy my stay there!

emd

Tell DH that if he feels like wasting his first half day in Tokyo, then he should not plan ahead for the cell phone. Tell him it is easy as pie to get this taken care of online and have the phone waiting at the hotel w/english instructions and a phonenumber to call w/an englsih speaking person to help you if you encounter any problems. If it was me and he still said let's just do it when we get there, I'd book online w/rentafone or another service (I tried PuPuRu but couldn't get them to accept my credit card online, they wanted me to call them w/the credit card # and I couldn't ever reach the guy I was supposed to call) and just tell him I took care of it, end of story. It's your trip too, right? BUt that is just me and how I deal w/my DH when he gets it in his head that he knows best about something w/his laid back attitude and I can see disaster ahead.

Mary2Go

emd,

I have managed to convince him that my research has found the best solution and we are going to take your advice and use Rentaphone. Between my OCD and his control issues it's amazing we really do get along most of the time!!! Tahnks for your input. I have read your trip report and lots of your advice to others. I really appreciate people taking the time to help make others trips pleasant!

angethereader

Mary2Go - be sure to post a trip report when you get back.
emd and I (along with many others I'm sure) are starving for Japan reports.

germantour

Hi. I'm planning a trip to Japan in January (thanks to emd here who has helped with other questions I had on another thread). I'll probably be flying ANA, and they have a deal with Inphonix for free use of a phone while in Japan (pickup at airport). The rates for calls to the US are about 100yen per minute though, and other companies seem lower (perhaps if arranged on site?). I speak Japanese so could probably manage, but even here in the US using my native English the plans for domestic cell use can be complicated! Has anyone used Skype in Japan? I'll have my laptop with me and will probably need to check email from time to time, and call my family (DH, two kids) or receive calls from them.

germantour

Just did some searches here on "mobile phone rental" and saw emd's post about Rentaphone (and the note about the ANA deal not really being very good). Has anyone used Rentaphone recently and also found it to be a good deal? I'm wondering also about use of the phone for domestic calls, as I'm staying with a friend who may be contacting me on the cell from a landline or cell in Japan. It seems that for some of the plans you get in advance,the domestic rates are pretty high.

emd

One caveat: The ANA phone was not a good deal for me when I calculated the cost of the calls I would be making to the USA. For most of the phone plans (and this was true for Rentafone and Vodaphone, both of which I have used), all incoming calls, no matter where they are from, are FREE, no charge at all. I can't recall if that is how ANA's phone was, but it should be that way to be competitive.

I didn't look at domestic outgoing calls so much, because the only ones I was going to make were between the person I was traveling with and myself, just short calls to find each other when we split up for awhile. ANA might be a better deal than Rentafone and the others if you are making longer/more domestic calls, I don't know about that. But the calls from Japan to U.S. comprised the vast bulk of my final amounts with both Vodaphone and Rentafone.

satrijoe

Want to bring this topic back to life.

I am considering a rental phone in Japan (as my GSM phone will not work there).

Looking at Narita Airport's website, it seems that there are several phone rental options there:
http://www.narita-airport.jp/en/guid...svc_19_t2.html

I wonder if someone who has done it recently could share the experience (cost, convenience). I have a specific question: I know some companies offer the option for you to use your SIM card in a rental phone so that you can keep your own phone number active. It sounds convenient but I wonder if the roaming costs are not astronomical...

Mary2Go

I just got back from Japan a couple of weeks ago and wish that we would have used Rentaphone again like we did two years ago. It was really simple, no extra stops to make in the airport and the phones we rented were at the hotel when we arrived. We were going to be in Japan and Korea and my husband thought he might be able to use his phone in Korea so he called T-mobile and the rep looked up his model info and told him he could use it in both Korea and Japan and that roaming service for the two countries needed to be added and quoted him something like $1.20 a minute. Well needless to say his phone did not work upon arrival and after a call from our hotel room and getting nowhere with T-Mobile he gave up. We were talking to the concierge at our hotel and he mentioned it and she said no sim card phones work in Japan. She offered to rent the phone there, she had one right at her desk and all it required was a quick credit ap and providing a credit card as it was not billed on the hotel bill. I don't remeber the charge but it was reasonable. DH actually finally set up Skype on his laptop and wound up using that in Korea and it worked extremely well since he really only needed it for the hour or two he was keeping up with the office while using his laptop anyway. The connection was probably better than a cell connection. At .02 a minute it was great.

Alec

To roam with your own SIM card in Japan, you need a 3G phone, either on UMTS (WCDMA) or CDMA2000 system. There are three cellphone networks in Japan, two (NTT DoCoMo and SoftBank) use UMTS and KDDI-au uses CDMA2000. Most service providers have a roaming agreement in Japan with one or the other network. Charges vary, but are typically around $1.50 to $2 a min to call out (inland) and receive. Cheaper option is an unlocked 3G phone on UMTS/WCDMA and a global SIM card such as TravelSIM. Around 50 cents/min to call out and nothing to receive (your caller has to dial a cellphone number registered in other countries like Estonia, Liechtenstein or UK).

satrijoe

Hello Mary2Go and Alec:
Thanks for your input. I also came across a rental phone called myjapanphone. They have a very compelling offer (free rental in the first week). I still need to read the fine lines but it sounds like a killer:
http://www.myjapanphone.com/rental_details.html

I guess my main concern is to be able to communicate with my wife in case we choose to tour different places.

The option to have the phone(s) dropped off at the hotel is very tempting.

satrijoe

For now, I have discarded roaming using my SIM chip. AT&T charges calls at $2.29 or $1.69, if you are a world traveler. (aren't we all? ;o) Myjapanphone services is free for incoming calls and $0.90 for outbound calls to US. The rental itself is $8/day at AT&T vs. $0 (first week) and $2/day for the following days on Myhjapanphone.

I guess my decision is getting very solid.

satrijoe

Actually, AT&T is even worse. The $8/day rental is for other countries. Japan is $9.99/day.

Mary2Go

Satrijoe,

I looked at the Rentafone website to make sure they were still around. Here is their website http://www.rentafonejapan.com/rental-charges.htm
We did the two phone rental two years ago because my husband and I met our then 18 year old son in Tokyo for a few days. He went off on his own for a few days while we were still there and then we went home and he stayed for another week before he left. It was nice to be able to coordinate meeting him and making sure he was okay after we went home. Especially after he told us he met a really nice Japanese guy at his hostel who was ex Yakuza who was showing he and a couple of other kids around!