It looks like one of Japan's most popular cell phone service providers, NTT Docomo, is looking to expand the services they offer in the US. As a Mobile Virtual Network Operator, they would use existing infrastructure, most likely that of AT&T or T-Mobile. Many hope that NTT Docomo will pick up the iPhone in the US and offer much more reasonable rates.
After doing a bit of research, I was somewhat surprised to see that Japan mostly uses CDMA technology in lieu of GSM. Basically, for those studying abroad, don't expect to be able to pop a sim card into your quad-band BlackBerry and be ready to go. You'll have to buy a pay-as-you-go phone once you get there. As you can see here, SoftBank's offerings in terms of pay-as-you-go phones are pretty weak, but hopefully that means they'll be reasonably priced...However, considering it's quite difficult (at least from what I've read) for non-citizens to get phones, I'm sure ND's study abroad program has something worked out already.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
NTT Docomo
Posted by bstevenson at 5:33 PM
Labels: Japan, technology
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I would hope they have something up for that, because i know a lot of people who study abroad or want to (like me) really would like the semi-security a cell phone gives you (like as a way of reaching someone if you are lost). I didn't know that getting a phone to work in Japan was as big of a problem, though I have to say I never used my phone abroad, so I don't have a ton of experience with that. Thanks for the informative post!
Nice post about the phone situation! I was wondering about that over the summer if I chose to study abroad, but looks like you are ahead of the game right now. If I end up going, it's good to know that some service that works there can possibly work here as well.
Post a Comment