[I thought about posting this in Travel Technology, but since it's so Japan-specific, I thought it would be better placed here.]

I'm somewhat familiar with the complexity of the Japanese wireless phone market and how it's very different from anywhere else in the world. I usually just rent a phone at NRT upon arrival, although once I did rent a 3G DoCoMo handset at the airport and put my US T-Mobile SIM into it and was able to roam fine (so I know that my SIM will roam in Japan).

Now, I have a Nokia 6630, which from what I've read in other posts on FT will roam in Japan in 3G mode. So, I think for the first time, I'll have a phone that I can take with me to Japan and have it work roaming-wise.

But here's the question: will I be able to use it to provide wireless Internet access for my laptop? For $19.95/month I have the plan option that does this for me in the US. T-Mobile says that when roaming internationally, data access of this sort is $15/MB. But I'm not sure if this will work at all in Japan with this phone and any of the Japanese networks that have roaming agreements with T-Mobile. Anyone know?

I have a very similar set-up -- I use an unlocked Nokia 6630 on T-Mobile with the $19.95/month unlimited internet service. I use it with my laptop via Bluetooth. In fact, I am writing this over an EDGE connection in Orange County.

I know that using the 6630 for voice roaming in Japan works fine. When I was there in July, it would roam on 3G on both DoCoMo and Vodafone. I didn't use it much though because of the $1.99/minute roaming rate. Instead, I used a Vodafone prepaid phone that I purchased during a previous trip.

Unfortunately, I don't have any experience using the data services while in Japan. At $15/MB, I was too afraid to even give it a try. I could easily use 10MB or more in an hour.

Depending on your location, you may want to look into one of the wifi services. T-Mobile's HotSpot service has roaming in Japan. I used it last year when they were not yet charging for roaming. They now charge $0.12/minute. iPass and Boingo also have roaming agreements, but I do not know their rates. NTT's Mzone wifi service is 1,575 yen for one month, and Japan Telecom's BB Mobile wifi service is probably similar in price. During my recent trip, I occasionally used a free wifi connection at a restaurant listed on the Freespot website (http://www.freespot.com/users/map_e.html) .

[I thought about posting this in Travel Technology, but since it's so Japan-specific, I thought it would be better placed here.]


More and more hotels in Japan, including the cheap ones, are including a broadband Ethernet connection in the price of the room.

I have to go to a fairly obscure city on my next trip, and wouldn't you know it, there are hotels with broadband in the rooms in that city. (Compare this with London, where one hotel charged 50p per minute...)

You may want to try them. They list $14.99 Daily (unlimited usage).

http://www.cellhire.com/services/jap_data/japanese_data_cc.htm

Please note that I have NOT used them.