I have had a dilemma over the past few days. I am getting ready to do a whirlwind tour of Japan. Where I will stay from night to night may be a challenge and I absolutely had to have Internet access 24×7
I know that Japan has significant wireless offerings but I did not want to get hammered for several thousand dollars just for a couple of weeks of coverage with pre-paid phones which are readily available but no cheap when it comes to data plans.
So I reached out on Twitter and did some Google searches. While I did not find the site through a direct search I did find a site from a company based here in Honolulu that you can rent phones and wireless cards from.
They deliver the phone and wireless card to me a few days before I get to Japan. My local cell phone is forwarded to the new number while I am gone and business is as usual.
Having a hacked iPhone did not allow me to simply change sims or add a international plan and I really did not want to have to spend a couple of hours finding coverage once I got there.
While I will pay around $300.00 for three weeks the grantee of having unlimited bandwidth on a fat pipe and a cell phone that has a local Japanese number to do business on is well worth the price.
This is not the perfect solution for someone that travels to Asia a lot but it is a solution for the periodic traveler. The Hawaii company I went with is www.jcrcorp.com check them out!
I will give you all a review when I get back.. Of course you can keep up with me while I live stream from Japan.
So, how did the JCRCORP rental go? I plan on taking my iPhone with ATTs Int’l roaming plan, but also may need to take a notebook so would be interested in your review of the service you had. Thanks.