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Wiltern
Joined: 23 Sep 2009
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 Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:57 pm Post subject: taking my phone to Japan |
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| I have an iPhone (KT Olleh) and will be traveling to Japan for 1 week. I heard I can pay 10,000 a day to hook up with a Japanese KT partner. Is there a cheaper alternative since I don't plan on using the phone very much at all? Can you rent a phone at the airport? |
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ghostrider
Joined: 27 Jun 2011
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| Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2012 2:35 am Post subject: Re: taking my phone to Japan |
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| Wiltern wrote: |
| I have an iPhone (KT Olleh) and will be traveling to Japan for 1 week. I heard I can pay 10,000 a day to hook up with a Japanese KT partner. Is there a cheaper alternative since I don't plan on using the phone very much at all? Can you rent a phone at the airport? |
The 10,000 a day plan only covers unlimited data. You still have to pay the normal roaming rate for calls and texts.
This seven day plan only costs 3,000 to sign up for:
http://expatblog.kt.com/189
Or just buy cheap skype credit and stay at a hotel that has wifi. |
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b-class rambler
Joined: 25 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2012 8:16 pm Post subject: Re: taking my phone to Japan |
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| Wiltern wrote: |
| Is there a cheaper alternative since I don't plan on using the phone very much at all? |
How much is 'not very much at all'? It might be that your cheaper alternative is to do nothing at all and just take your phone as is.
I was always fairly sure that you only incur roaming charges for calls or texts that you actually make or receive, and any data charges of course. In other words, you don't pay anything for just having your phone switched on and connected to the network.
So if you're hardly going to use the phone, it's hardly going to cost you much. One thing to be aware of is that roaming charges tend to be much more of a rip off for texts than for voice calls. And a lot of folk obviously assume the opposite and send texts rather than calling when they're overseas. If you use kakao via wifi, that's a problem easily avoided though. |
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slasher
Joined: 24 May 2012
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| Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2012 10:39 pm Post subject: |
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Roaming charges are a tricky subject...
If you receive a call from anywhere (incl a guy standing next to you), you pay roaming charges (i.e. the guy pays whatever normal charge there is to call your number in Korea, and KT charges you for forwarding the call from Korea to Japan).
If you call somebody while in Japan, you will pay the fee that the Japanese company handling the call will charge you (which is usually higher than what they charge local customers). KT will probably add some cost to it, but this means you can call local numbers in Japan for a slightly elevated "local" rate. If you call somebody in Korea, you pay their long-distance fee.
Receiving text messages (SMS) does not incur any costs. Sending SMS do, but I disagree with the above post, it is usually (but yeah, exceptions may exist) less than half a dollar per text message. You pay more than that for one call.
NOTE: MMS is NOT text message, it is data roaming. On iPhones however, you cannot tell them apart... 
Problem: Data roaming. ALWAYS assume it is outrageously expensive unless you know otherwise (as it is usually). That 10,000 won applies to 24 hours unlimited data usage on NTT Docomo network (only) in Japan. Not a bad deal I guess as this probably is worth as much as sending one photo on a normal roaming rate. You do not pay any roaming charges if you are only using wi-fi.
I bet that renting a phone at the airport will cost you more than what is worth though... |
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b-class rambler
Joined: 25 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2012 11:36 pm Post subject: |
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| slasher wrote: |
If you call somebody while in Japan, you will pay the fee that the Japanese company handling the call will charge you (which is usually higher than what they charge local customers). |
You don't actually pay anything at all to the Japanese operator. You pay only to KT, who'll obviously pay out of what they charge you whatever amount they agreed to the Japanese operator. I'm guessing that's what you meant, but the way you phrased it might give some people the impression that they'll have to pay twice.
| slasher wrote: |
| Receiving text messages (SMS) does not incur any costs. |
Yes, correct. The way I wrote my sentence made it look like you do get charged for receiving anything, but I know you're absolutely right that you don't for receiving SMS texts, at least not with KT or SK.
| slasher wrote: |
| Sending SMS do, but I disagree with the above post, it is usually (but yeah, exceptions may exist) less than half a dollar per text message. You pay more than that for one call. |
You've perhaps misunderstood what I was saying. I didn't say that SMS texting when roaming overseas was more expensive than calling, but that it was often more of a rip-off. Probably wasn't very clear to be fair, so let me clarify what I meant. In Korea or your home country, texts will often cost absolute peanuts or be free. So if, for example, you ended up sending a text of "What time?", then one of "Too early. How about 2.30?", then one of "yeah, 2.45 is fine" and then a final one of "c u there".....that's 4 texts but it would cost you hardly anything and certainly no more than calling the person to ask and give the same info.
But when you're roaming every single text costs usually W200 or W300, depending on the country in you're in. So it'd be easy to unthinkingly send 4 or 5 very brief texts like in the case above and run up a charge of W1500 in doing so. Whereas you could've conveyed all the above in a 20 second phone call that would have actually cost you less than that.
Sure, if you can cram all you need to tell someone into one text and be done with it with no more communication needed, then obviously that's better than making a roaming call. But my point was that a lot of folk do get caught out with texting when roaming overseas by running up what's a ridiculous charge considering the limited amount they actually said.
| slasher wrote: |
I bet that renting a phone at the airport will cost you more than what is worth though... |
Totally agree with that conclusion.
Something else to bear in mind if you were renting is that in Japan, the i-phone (if you wanted one while you were there) is mostly available with Softbank. NTT Docomo have good mobile coverage and a Docomo phone won't be out of range inside most buildings or when you go more than 200m above sea level. But Softbank's coverage is dreadful in many places where you'd never expect to have poor phone reception. Softbank took over the network that Vodafone gave up on because it was so bad. |
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banjois
Joined: 14 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 12:56 am Post subject: |
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I used the 10,000 plan with NTT Docomo in Japan last month. Coverage is kinda spotty, though maybe I've just been spoiled by Korea....
I found it pretty useful. Having the maps and translation services there 24/7 is pretty handy. |
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banjois
Joined: 14 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 12:56 am Post subject: |
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I used the 10,000 plan with NTT Docomo in Japan last month. Coverage is kinda spotty, though maybe I've just been spoiled by Korea....
I found it pretty useful. Having the maps and translation services there 24/7 is pretty handy. |
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Jake_Kim
Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 2:24 am Post subject: |
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The thing about sending text within Japan is that, for some reason, an SMS of just 1 alphabet still gets coded and counted as an MMS.
Since it is almost a common sense to block data roaming on your smartphone unless you have a reasonable alternative - such as that NTT Dokomo deal - the ramification of said text coding in Japan means you cannot send out even simple texts.
Olleh KT has a unique roaming setting you can apply for, however. It blocks all 3G data roaming EXCEPT FOR MMS. Receiving MMS/LMS on roaming is for free, and sending an MMS should cost 500 Won per text.
It's something that must be imposed on your customer account at corporate level, not something you can accomplish by tweaking user settings of your iPhone on your own. KT does not charge you for applying this setting, which can be done at the airport. |
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Wiltern
Joined: 23 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 2:30 am Post subject: |
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| Thanks for all the responses. I'm thinking of just sticking with WiFi (which I know my hotels will have). If that's the case, should I just make sure to turn ON Airplane Mode before I go to avoid any outrageous charges I may incur? |
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banjois
Joined: 14 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 5:07 am Post subject: |
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| Airplane mode will block out Wi-Fi too. You want to turn off cellular data in one of them there menus.... |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 5:32 am Post subject: |
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| banjois wrote: |
| Airplane mode will block out Wi-Fi too. You want to turn off cellular data in one of them there menus.... |
Doesn't on an iPhone. I've used Wi-Fi in airplane mode on ocassion. |
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banjois
Joined: 14 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 6:20 am Post subject: |
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| Huh. Good to know. |
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b-class rambler
Joined: 25 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Jake_Kim wrote: |
The thing about sending text within Japan is that, for some reason, an SMS of just 1 alphabet still gets coded and counted as an MMS.
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You raise a good point, which I'd forgotten about - it's over 5 years now since I lived in Japan.
The reason for what you've pointed out is that Japan's system for texting has always been different to everywhere else. Even since well before smartphones came on the scene, in Japan cell phone texting has been based on e-mail.
Basically, between Japanese cell phone users there were 2 kinds of text message. Most of the time you'd send a "me-ru" (mail) and it would be to the other user's cellphone e-mail address, NOT their phone number. There were texts with a much smaller character limit that you could send using the recipient's phone number, but only if they were on the same operator - i.e. docomo to docomo, AU to AU or Softbank to Softbank. Docomo called this "sho-to me-ru" (short mail), Softbank called it Skymail and these were obviously what would be SMS anywhere else. Whereas the text you sent to someone using a different mobile operator to the one you had would be an MMS anywhere else.
So to summarise that pile of of confusion, SMS in Japan is only possible between phones on the same network. How that works out for roaming, I'm not sure. Whenever I've been back in Japan, roaming with my Korean phone, I've either used kakao, called people or sent texts via my wife's company phone that I don't get the bill for. If you were roaming on Docomo's network, it might be possible to send a text counted as an SMS to a phone also on the Docomo network. But I wouldn't be sure about that and suspect you may well be billed for an MMS every time.
In other words, even more reason to be cautious of texting when you're in Japan if you're worried about your roaming charges mounting up. |
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b-class rambler
Joined: 25 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 4:41 pm Post subject: |
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| banjois wrote: |
I used the 10,000 plan with NTT Docomo in Japan last month. Coverage is kinda spotty, though maybe I've just been spoiled by Korea....
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My guess would be that you probably have been spoiled in Korea. For example, in Japan (unless this has changed very recently), there's no reception at all in subway tunnels.
Also, what I said earlier about Docomo's coverage referred to cellphone and text reception. I'm not so sure what the 3G/data coverage is like because smartphones only appeared after I moved out of Japan and whenever I've returned to visit, I've avoided 3G and stuck to wi-fi.
But I would expect that if you found Docomo coverage a little spotty, then you'd have been extremely frustrated with Softbank. |
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