3G BB in JP?
 

Sorry, I'll stop being cute.

In all seriousness, am I correct in expecting an OEM Optus Blackberry Bold (9000) to work fine once I step off a plane in Japan/Korea?

Cheers,

Steven

Yes - the technology will work, but you'll need to make sure you operator has your account setup for roaming (as well as data roaming) and make sure the networks you want to use are included in their coverage.

Also, be sure to double check their prices and ask whether they offer any kind of data package that could make your trip a little cheaper. Some operators charge as much as $20/MB (US) which means a single email with a PowerPoint could end up costing about $100.

Which operators are those? :confused:

AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint... Need some more?

Why :confused: ? Those are pretty much the average international data roaming rates from most operators, including those abroad.

AT&T: $0.0195/KB = about $20/MB
T-Mobile: $15 per MB ($10/MB in Canada)
Sprint: $0.016/KB = $16/MB

Etc...

Intl. data roaming is a ripoff, and every year, people arrive back home with $4000 bills because they didn't pay attention to the warnings.

I guess I've never paid much attention to my bill, or I haven't sent too many large emails, but those rates are nuts.

And even if you get a rental in Japan with Softbank, so your 3G phone works (and keep in mind they refuse to service you if you want to get a smartphone on the network, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, iPhone, or otherwise), it's 1 yen for every 128 bytes. So 8 for 1KB, or 8192 yen for 1MB (about $87 now)

They instituted the ban ever since somebody thought they knew how to turn off data, and ruined it for the rest of us. Apparently that person managed to run up a bill in the thousands of dollars to Softbank.

Atleast with the Blackberries -- ATT, TMobile, Verizon & Sprint has unlimited international data plans. ATT & Verizon's are $70/month. Supposedly it is only for e-mail and other BB data services like BBM. However, I use it for things like GMap and web browsing and have never been charged extra data for roaming international on the unlimited int'l data plan.

(My Bolding) :)

http://personal.optus.com.au/web/oca...&site=personal

In short, the answer is "yes", however you should check with Optus about the roaming prices for BB data - Optus isn't cheap...

The VZW plan is $64.99/month and is unlimited data on a BB device, not just unlimited email.

I think that only the TMo plan was the one that was for BB only and that people were tricking for a while to get everything for free.