V-Flyer

Does anyone know which UK mobile phones work in Japan? I have been trying to find out online but a lot of advice is contradictory. Has anyone on this board been able to use their mobile in Japan, what kind of phone is it and which provider?

Best wishes

Paul

We use sony quad bands and blackberrys (again quadbands) with a o2 agreement. Both work in Yokohama and tokyo OK. I believe quad is vital. You also need a service provider with a japan agreement, or you can buy sims locally.

My understanding is that Japan requires a 3G handset as that is the only technology they use (no GSM). Unfortunatly I have never dealt with a roaming fault involving Japan and have no personal experience.

I stand ready to be corrected.

You need to have a phone that supports the UMTS bands. Quad band might not be of use as it may be quad band on GSM which is a different infrastruture.

3G phones work though as they do tend to support UMTS, I have an Orange M3100 (HTC Hermes) which worked fine over in Japan.

Use this to see if your phone supports UMTS:
http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=558

You need to check the roaming agreement with your provider, for isntance Orange support pay monthly customers but not PAYG.

Thanks,
Richard

That explains it - I thought it was quad - appologies for the mis-information- but the sonys we use are 3g. Not sure about the blackberrys though as we cant make video calls with them.[?]

My understanding of it is that basically you need to use a 3G handset.

Having a quad-band handset still wont work as quad band phones all use the GSM network (which Japan does not support). Quad-band handsets only have 850/900/1800/1900 GSM bands.

You need a phone that supports the 2100 UMTS band (ie 3G)

Take a look here for more info.

As Richard says, also check with your provider. V Mobile dont have roaming agreements for standard PAYG users in Japan, you have to be either direct debit pay monthly or a contract customer.

Regards