Will the One X work in Japan?

nickmo

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Oct 22, 2011
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Hey, my brother is in the marines and is going to be spending a good majority of the next 2 years in Japan. I have been trying to do research on the mobile networks in Japan, but it has been confusing. What we are looking for is a phone that he can order right now, have delivered in the USA, use on a network(likely GSM?) and then when he goes to Japan he can use on a Japanese network.

My initial thought was to get the Samsung Galaxy Nexus directly from Google. No contracts, decent price, etc. But I am unsure whether or not it will run on any Japanese networks. If it does, which one will it run on? Our second choice would be the One X. Does anyone have any experience with mobile networks in Japan? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
 

anon(21022)

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May 8, 2010
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Hey there,

I hope I'm not replying too late... I've been living on-and-off in Japan for 2 years so I can help a bit :)

"Will the One X work in Japan?"

*Technically*, yes. If it has the 2100MHz W-CDMA band (which all the One X's do I think), then it will be able to connect on 2 of the three major carriers in Japan, namely NTT DoCoMo and SoftBank.

However it might not be a good idea... If you think USA's cellphone carriers are d**sh**s, just wait till you get to Japan..... lol

I think japandroid has the most up to date howto (using the One X too as the example phone) to get it to run on DoCoMo or SoftBank. Japan Mobile Tech is another excellent resource, info is buried in that blog too.

In essence, it's a LOT of trouble, because the carriers are very closed and have a LOT of requirements and complicated structures to their mobile plans, subscriptions, and availability, and your brother will have to jump through a lot of hoops to get a foreign phone to work on these carriers.

The _easiest_ option is to get a prepaid phone from Softbank then pop out the SIM card, cut it, put it in the One X, and hope to configure the APNs properly. This will allow him SMS/MMS (also known as S!Mail, because SMS has never caught on in Japan and everyone uses email hosted by their mobile carriers, on their phones - even non smartphones), phonecalls, and very little else. NO DATA.

The _best_ option (if using the One X) is to subscribe to doCoMo's Xi LTE plans, even though the One X (international or AT&T version) will NOT be able to hop on the LTE networks in Japan, so it will fallback to FOMA (fancy name for 3G). Why the LTE plan then? Because otherwise your brother won't be able to use data, as the One X isn't a device sold by DoCoMo, and DoCoMo ONLY allows registered (as in, IMEI is registered in their database) to access their 3G-only plan data.

You could of course register the One X's IMEI, and end up paying 100$/month JUSt for data, not counting the rest of the options on the plan. That's because DoCoMo automatically assumes that an unlocked, foreign phone has tethering enabled so will automatically put you on their tethering plan. Xi has tethering included free of charge (for the moment), so you won't get such a big penalty there.

And that's IF you manage to get a micro SIM card at all without buying a new phone, dependant on the good will of the shopkeeper and patience of your brother to deal with the complexities of the place...

Might be easier to get a phone over there (which will have LTE, water and dust resistance, mobile TV, possibly a thermometer and fingerprint reader depending on the model he chooses, and a bunch of other cool things not found elsewhere), then, IF it's a DoCoMo phone (other carriers don't offer unlocks), unlock it and take it back to the USA later... Of course that would bring all sorts of other issues, such as being unable to run software updates outside Japan for most of these devices lol.

Another possible option is to use a few of the MVNOs (smaller carriers that don't have their own cell towers but hop on a major carrier's towers by leasing the bandwidth - think MetroPCS or whatever, I'm not too familiar with the carriers in the US) such as b-mobile or Aeon mobile, they are much more open, but may not afford the best service / speeds / compatibility.

Lemme know if you have more questions after reading those two links above...

Patrix.

PS: Japan does NOT have GSM, only 3G and CDMA2000. Quadband GSM phones (like the original iPhone) will not run at all here, has to be at the very least 2100MHz 3G. DoCoMo and softbank both have extra bands (800, 900, 1500? MHz) that local phones most probably can use but foreign phones might not support, giving them greater coverage.. And of course the LTE bands here are different from everywhere else in the world and will be incompatible.