Unlike my country, India, Japan has a system to get a phone connection, its Contract system. It’s slightly different from getting a prepaid sim or postpaid sim. In India, we don’t have system like contract. We buy sim and use any mobile.
But like US, in Japan, contract system is major. As a foreigner I had difficulty in getting my first mobile connection. It’s little difficult to get a phone without knowing Japanese. But it’s not really difficult.
(Reference:NTT DOCOMO, INC.)
(Reference:KDDI CORPORATION)
(Reference:SoftBank Group Corp.)
The most famous networks here are NTT docomo, SoftBank and au. They provide English customer care which can be availed on request to the concerned staff. The best place to buy a phone will be Yodobashi Camera or BIC CAMERA stores, which is in major cities and has many good offers to help people to get the best deal.
We get very competitive prices for new phones with wide variety of choices and very good monthly installment plan, which provides basic call, message plan and internet package at very affordable prices. Now days they too have English speaking interpreters in some outlet where a person will be available to have a smooth communication. It makes us easy, much comfortable. If no interpreter we can go for a telephonic customer care service where we can have assistance from an English speaking person. This service is also available in some other languages too. Most of the official sites of mobile phone companies have Chinese, Korean site along with English which will be useful to people who can read these languages.
(Reference:Yodobashi Camera)
(Reference:BIC CAMERA)
The basic requirements/necessary documents to get a phone in Japan are,
- Resident card/ Alien card
- Cash card (ATM card)
- Credit card
- Passport (If you are taking 1st connection may be necessary).
- National health insurance
If you give these documents most of the job is done, as Japanese staffs are too kind. They will guide you completely about filling of your form and even guiding what it mean.
The real good thing is, I understood many things from their expressions which are really beneficial. And they even helped me to write Japanese letters (They write in rough paper and I copy it in my form). So it is basically not a big deal. And many Japanese staff can understand little bit English and even can speak some words which really help.
Finally, one thing we should remember, we are in a land where each human is respected and treated with full respect. The way Japanese treat each foreigner is really great. They are very polite, humble and too kind. So being a foreigner we really don’t have to worry for anything in this beautiful land.
Prashant G
India
