phone/data plan
 

Hi all,

I have a booked flight to NRT and HKG next month. I was wondering what is my best option for a cellphone plan? I will mostly use the phone for the data plan and not the minutes. NRT has cellphones for rent...however I'm not sure how expensive that is. I will be in NRT for 1 week.

i'm currently on an Atnt plan with a locked iphone5 if that helps as well.

Assuming T-Mobile coverage isn't bad in your area, take advantage of the ETF waivers and get yourself a T-Mobile iPhone 5S (which should be unlocked* -- you can verify that by simply putting in your old AT&T sim card in it).

You'll be able to roam for free for SMS and data (limited to about 150kbps up/down), and phone calls are flat rate 20c/min. I'm currently using this, and while it is a bit slow going, it's way better than having to prepare in advance.

No mess, no fuss. Ditch AT&T if the coverage is good for you and there's a monthly plan available for you that makes sense.

* Note that this doesn't matter when you're on T-Mobile because you'll simply keep the T-Mobile SIM card in your phone while you're traveling -- the entire point of this is it's seamless :)

A sim- or netlocked phone obviously doesn't help at all with using local sim cards. ;) With an unlocked phone you could use this http://www.bmobile.ne.jp/english/index.html data sim or with an unlocked iphone (probably the only phone that has the required japanese certification mark) you could rent a sim card from softbank for calls.

In your case it looks like you'll either have to rent a phone (most likely with very expensive data usage) or a wifi spot (e.g. http://www.econnectjapan.com/products/wifi) with a local data sim, but without any calling capabilities (although skype might be an option).