SIM Card at NRT
 

I have an unlocked BlackBerry Bold and I would like to get a 3G SIM card to make local calls in Japan with it. Are there any service providers at NRT that would sell me a SIM Card? What is the associated cost? How much airtime? Thanks!

If this needs to go somewhere else apologies, I am a newbie.

you might try the travel technology forum and do a search?

You should be able to rent 3G sim cards from cell phone rental counters in the arrival section of Narita. You'll typically pay a daily fee and any outgoing calls. Incoming calls are typically free, at least when renting the phone.

I recently researched this as well and from what I understand Japan is very different from, say Europe where you can just buy a sim card, pop it in your unlocked phone, and you are all done.

From what I understand, Japan will not sell prepaid phones or sim cards to non Japanese citizens. The only option would be to RENT. Which yes you should be able to do at Narita.

Not sure of the cost, I think you pay for whatever the rental is upfront
and then pay for whatever airtime when you return. And it seems incoming calls are free usually.

You can also have a residency permit (aka "gaijin card"). But a passport will not do. Same rules apply for getting regular post-paid service.

A few years ago, a little girl was kidnapped, and the perpetrator used a pre-paid cellphone to continually call the parents and the police were frustrated that they had no way of knowing who he was based on the mobile phone number, so they passed this stupid law.

Since the law will still not readily tell them who's calling if they use a payphone, steal a mobile phone, or roam into the country from elsewhere, I'm not quite sure what they accomplished other than reinforcing that Japan can be very foreigner-unfriendly and difficult to deal with at times.

Another reason is prepaid cell phones had been widely used for remittance fraud.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-b...0090203i1.html

SoftBank SIM Rental
 

SoftBank SIM rental information can be found here: http://www.softbank-rental.jp/en/phones/sim3g.php.

The charge is ¥105/day. Outbound local calls are ¥105/minute. Incoming calls are free.

SoftBank rental counters are in the arrival halls of Terminal 1 and Terminal 2.

perfect. this is exactly what i needed. thank you.

Certainly, the advice you have been given about prepaid phones is technically accurate. Without a 外国人登録証明書 (alien registration card), officially, it is not possible to purchase a prepaid (or postpaid) phone in Japan.

However, last April, I walked into a random cell phone shop in Higashi-Shinjuku and signed up for a standard, post-paid SoftBank "White Plan" with 1-year contract using only my passport and credit card, no questions asked. I'd imagine that the experience purchasing a prepaid phone would have been similar.

You're likely to be better off at smaller shops that aren't necessarily trained in the "proper" way to deal with foreigners, but this will necessitate at least some Japanese ability since most such places are unlikely to have English-speaking staff. In any case, purchasing a phone without an ARC is definitely doable, even if not officially permitted.

Finally, depending on how long you will be in Japan, there are reports of people who have been able to get an ARC without a long-term visa if you want to do things the official way. YMMV, of course.

Did you happen to notice if they looked at your immigration status in your passport? In any event, what you describe seems to make a lot more sense. If they're concerned about knowing the identity of the purchaser of a cellphone contract or SIM, then a foreign passport should do. It's not as if lots of Japanese nationals that intend to commit crimes with their own cellphones in the future will have forged foreign passports.

Please don't attempt to apply logic to Japanese regulations. They're not concerned with identity, since purchasing prepaid SIM cards with foreign passports is explicitly forbidden. :td:

I'm almost positive that they did not; the salesman copied something from the passport into his computer (presumably the passport number?) and handed it back within a total of about 30 seconds. If he did manage to find my current immigration status in between all of the other stamps and visas in there that quickly, he needs to be reassigned to give training to immigration officers. ;)

It is not forbidden to buy a prepaid SIM card just because you are a foreign passport holder, as far as I have read. It is just not permissible to buy a prepaid SIM card without acceptable proof of address in Japan and a proof of identity, and if you need an alien registration card if you are a foreign national. It does not mean that you are forbidden from buying a sim card just because you are a foreign passport holder.

Emphasis mine. So do you enjoy splitting semantic hairs, or did you actually have a point? :rolleyes:

I merely wished to clarify things because "purchasing prepaid SIM cards with foreign passports is explicitly forbidden" appeared to me to be open to misunderstanding - it could be interpreted as "buying a prepaid SIM card is forbidden if you are a foreign passport holder", which is not the case.

I do not consider FlyerTalk to be an appropriate forum for somewhat rude response as you have exhibited.

Hi everybody.
One month ago I pre-booked a SoftBank 3G sim card that I'll pick up at NRT next week.
Just today I received the confirmation along with this quote
"Please be advised that a pre-authorization of 40,000Yen per phone(SIM card) has been processed on your credit card for security of payment."

I checked and this was specified in the FAQs... but ouch that's 300€ :o
so be prepared just in case your credit line is not too high

cheers
maclover

I got to NRT and was on my way to having a SIM card, then she saw my BlackBerry Bold and pointed to some crudle printed and taped over note about "No smartphone, no iPhone"

I left it at that and moved along. My advice, just rent the damn SIM and dont show them what phone you plan to use it with.

This was softbank, was it now? Was this at Terminal 1 or Terminal 2? The reason I ask is that I'm suppose to pick mine up in two weeks for my smartphone! Crap...

yes it was softbank at terminal 1. my advice, do not take out your phone, just try to complete the transaction and be on your way. if you turn off data services via the mobile network and just use wifi or no data at all your smartphone is now a dumbphone and softbank should be none the wiser.

Thanks Blair.

Their standard procedure is to install the SIM and test the phone when you pick up the SIM. I'm not sure if they will complete the transaction without the phone.

On previous visits I've used a Nokia 6630 and a T-Mobile G1. They are both considered smartphones, so either the policy is new or they didn't recognize my phones as smartphones.

Any updated info? I have an unlocked BBerry that I'll be traveling with and was hoping to buy/rent a SIM in NRT.

Thanks!

You cannot buy a SIM in Japan unless you are a citizen or resident (foreigners must show residency card). So, the notion of showing up and buying a cheap pre-paid SIM as is done in many other countries does not apply in Japan. Also, the SIM rentals are likely to be expensive, targeted at the roaming businessman on an expense account, although one benefit is that you may get free incoming calls.

I think the issue you're talking about is separate from that though: apparently some vendor doesn't have the ability to block data usage and doesn't want to rent to people with phones that will use a lot of data.

Correct. I am looking for updated info on if I can rent the SIM without showing my BBerry at the time of rental.

SoftBank still has the policy in place. They are concerned that smartphones may be syncing data without the owner's knowledge, and running up huge data charges. SoftBank likely ends up with either having to write off the charges, or having an unhappy customer. Even if you know how to disable data communication/syncing, they will probably say, "Rules are rules" and not allow you to rent the SIM.

The last time I rented a SIM I used a low-end unlocked 3G phone, specifically a Sony-Ericsson TM506. They had no problem with this phone. Once you have the SIM, you can put it in any unlocked phone, but you will be responsible for making sure that you disable data sync on your smartphone. Be aware that data charges are very high.

I know of one case of purchasing a SoftBank prepaid phone and SIM (USIM) with only a passport with a 90-day visitor landing permission stamp. This particular store has been mentioned in some forums as consistently allowing purchase by non-residents.

Having a prepaid phone or renting a phone or SIM is useful for me for receiving calls. In fact, when you refill minutes into a prepaid account, the minutes are only good for 60 days. You can extend the balance by adding another prepaid recharge before the end of 60 days. However, if you let the minutes expire without another refill, you won't be able to make any calls (except emergency calls). The nice part about SoftBank prepaid is that you can continue to receive calls for another 360 days without refilling. After that the account is terminated and you lose the phone number. My plan is to just refill the account once every 13 months or so for ¥3,000, and this will give me a relatively permanent Japanese mobile number on which I can always receive calls while in Japan, and even make a few calls while the minutes are valid.

Making calls from the prepaid or rental is expensive. If I have to make an international call, I use Skype or MagicJack. If I have to make a domestic call, I wait until I have access to a household landline, Skype if I'm at a hotel, or for short calls use a payphone with an NTT prepaid card.

You can make international calls at the rate of local 03 calls.
http://www.geteazy.com/mltel/gjdhe.html

FYI, if you don't plan to call much, it might make more sense to roam in Japan with an AT&T post-paid SIM. It's $1.69/min with the World Traveler option ($5/month).

I just rented two SIMs from SoftBank last week, for a G1 and iphone. I kept the iphone hidden because I knew that wouldn't fly, and just lied my face off and said the G1 had no smartphone capabilities.

They were not happy with the fact that I could not produce the second phone because not only do they check to make sure the SIM is working, they make you both send and receive a call to their phone to really make sure. I forget exactly what their data charges are (I think it was 0.32 a packet) but it was exorbitant.

In general I have found they are not willing to rent to you if you have an iphone, and they are also not willing to rent to you if you cannot produce the phone.

Last time I used Telecom Square because they don't have data capabilities but this time they said they no longer rent SIMs.

If you're staying at some luxury hotels, there is an alternative. At the Peninsula, your room phone will work as a mobile throughout the city. At the Park Hyatt, although it's not publicized, if you ask, they will loan you a phone.

In both cases, I believe there is no rental fee and you only pay for outbound calls at their rate plus 20%, which works out to about Y80 a minute. Beats the heck out of renting a SIM card.

Another way of course is to get a Japanese friend to buy a prepaid SIM for you. You can recharge it anywhere without any id requirement.

The regulation prohibiting visitors from buying prepaid SIMs is as idiotic in origin as the above posters say.

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3Gs: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML,like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

A personal experience: I bought a HK Discounted SIM at 50 HKD with 150 HKD stored value. The roaming is at HKD 9 which the effective rate is HKD 3 per minute.

May be working for others if you can find some cheap Prepaid sim deal

That's a good deal too. I happened to have leftover value on a SingTel SIM and it was outrageously expensive to use it from Tokyo -- plus it worked by doing a "callback," a technique that I thought was long dead.

It's a technical limitation. Prepaid cards still use call back while roaming so the carrier can cut off the call when the balance runs out.