Finally Japan has an affordable voice & data cellphone network
W0oT! ↓
B-Mobile (which uses the best quality network, Docomo) is now offering “talkingSIM”, a voice and data SIM for under 4000 yen per month!
Refer to…
B-Mobile talkingSIM: BOTH voice and data for under 4000 yen per month
Softbank Sucks: July 23, 2010
B-Mobile will add voice service to their data SIMs by the end of the month…We now have the very first truly legit option for overseas smart phones in the B-Mobile talkingSIM…more….
Much like the iPhone using the poor quality AT&T network in the USA, the iPhone in Japan is locked into poor quality Softbank network. To make matters worse, Softbank doesn’t offer a good, affordable a voice and data plan for the iPhone.
Full disclosure: Although I’ve been a rapid Apple “fanboy” since 1982 and I’m a AT&T shareholder, I’m definitely going with Android and this affordable voice and data plan on the B-Mobile/Docomo network, which also works with almost any cellphone SIM back home in the States.
No matter how attractive Japanese cellphones might seem, 95% of them don’t work with foreign SIMs (and 99.999% of Japanese cellphones employ worst-in-the-world user interfaces).
As my little Droid buddy below says….
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July 24th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Unlimited data, but no streaming (so no Skype). They also charge 21yen/30secs for voice which is pretty pricey if you make regular calls. Finally, SMS is 5yen each to send…!
I’m really looking forward to Docomo allowing foreign phones (ie unlocked iPhones from outside Japan) onto their network later this year. They are apparently preparing their IMEI registration system currently.
The telecom industry in Japan hasn’t had a big shakeup like this since cheap ADSL became available in the late ’90s. Good times indeed.
July 24th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Yeah, but…
–As an iTouch owner for the past year I really grown to violently despise touch screen typing–50% of the time it doesn’t recognize my keystrokes and I rather just use a good mini-keyboard for thumb typing.
–On my past cellphones, I only made 3 or 4 voice calls a month so the cost per call doesn’t matter.
–I use Skype on my iTouch and it sucks. For the 3 or 4 voice calls I make a month, I’d rather just pay.
– I NEVER ever want to use SMS—I only want to use google mail’s mobile browser.
–I really want to use tethering with my own notebook at work, which the iPhone does not allow without jailbreaking.
–I think Steve Jobs should go suck a bag of dicks for his closed-system, non-replaceable battery iPhone (and I’ve been an rabid Apple fanboy since 1982).
July 24th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
I didn’t like the onscreen keyboard at first either but now prefer it to a mini-keyboard… I’m far faster on the onscreen keyboard and make fewer errors. I don’t really have problems with it missing keystrokes.
Not much I can say here, everyone has different usage patterns.
Very odd. I use Skype over Wifi all the time on my 3GS and it’s great. The sound quality is identical to what I get with Skype Out on my PC and it is very rare that I have to hang up and call back due to quality issues. The quality of Skype over 3G varies widely depending on Softbank’s network performance. Sometimes I get good quality, other times it isn’t usable at all.
Again, just a different usage pattern. I could switch to sending more emails than SMS but it’d kinda suck for quick messages.
Actually it isn’t the iPhone that blocks tethering, it is Softbank. You can put a Docomo smartphone SIM into an unlocked Softbank iPhone and tether freely if you use Docomo’s “PC Direct” settings for data. The data charge cap is 13,000yen a month. Softbank doesn’t allow this as their network is complete crap and there is no way they could support a large number of people tethering.
Jobs has always chosen form over function so it’s hardly a surprise that this has continued with the iPhone. A jailbroken iPhone is still the best mobile on the market as far as I’m concerned, but with Google hiring away the guy who designed Palm’s WebOS I think we will see great things from Android 3.0. I haven’t bought an iPhone 4 and it is quite likely that my next smartphone will be an Android device with a Docomo SIM in it.
July 24th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
I’m a bit torn when it comes to smart phones. I have a Windows smart phone in the States that I really only use for calls and texting most of the time. I love the keyboard and being able to look up a web page from time to time, but I miss the TV features and form design of a Japanese phone.
On the other hand, I have a Softbank Panasonic 930P in Japan that I love for everything except texting. My old keitai was a Sharp that was excellent for texting, but my current Panasonic has some odd interface that is great for kanji I’m told but stinks for anything non-Japanese. It’s not fun texting on it at all but I can get it done.
Between the two, I like the clamshell design of the 930P better. I love the ability to watch TV on it. The web function is a bit basic but works well enough. Still though, I really like smart phone abilities. I actually still use a PDA along with my phone though I guess all the outlook features can really be tied into the 930P. I’m looking into this as I’m about to make the switch back to Macintosh on Monday when my new Mac arrives.
I really want to like smart phones, but I don’t care for the size. If there were a clamshell smart phone that had a real keyboard (even if tiny) and a TV tuner with an OS that I could customize, I would be set. I would also like to be able to use a stylus with the screen.
As for the OS… the funny thing is I’m actually one of the few people out there that actually likes Windows Mobile. I don’t care for the iPhone OS. Android OS is indeed very interesting to me. I have yet to see what the WebOS is about and doubt I will now that HP owns PALM.
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If only Bill Gates had a penny for every time Windows crashed……oh wait… he does!!
August 5th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
Although it’s far from the best Android phone, Motor-ola’s i1 is a decent touch-screen smartphone for users on BoostMobile.
August 13th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
Hi all…
I just got a call from Softbank today and my iP4 came in. BUT I might not pick it up as I am interested in the B-Mobile deal. I might buy a real factory unlocked iP4 from Apple Canada since they’re sold unlocked and get my Mum to ship it over and boom, I have an unlocked iP4 (unjailbroken) on Docomo’s sweet network.
Only concern is that I read somewhere that this data from B-Mobile is quite slow.
[quote=other site]The current b-mobile SIMs (actually Docomo SIMs) are 300 Kbs which is rather slower than Docomo high-speed 7.2 Mbs (It would appear that Docomo wants to reserve high-speed for their own customers…) [/quote]