GSM mobile phone in Japan (and other Asian countries)?

Hallvard,

Unfortunately, Internet cafes are very rare in Japan. The
explanation usually given is that most people have com-
puters at home, thus no need for Internet cafes.

OTH, public phone cards are _very_ easy to find, but
since "ordinary" phone rates apply, you will find that
option very expensive for keeping in touch with people
outside Japan.

Despite all negative info about phones, I am sure you
will have a nice time in Japan!

Rgds,
Algot

"Hallvard Tangeraas" wrote in message
m...
JMS wrote:

As for Japan you can forget about using you GSM phone as they do not
have
GSM networks there. As for the rest of Asia, no problem. Prepaid cards
are
very easy to obtain and can be purchased in various values.

Also confirmed by the other poster in this thread.
I'll stick to Internet email and public phones instead then (I assume
Internet cafes and public phone calling-cards aren't hard to come by in
Japan?).

Regarding the rest of Asia: how much do "starter" packages consisting of
a SIM card (and a local phone number) and preferaably some calling time
cost? I'll be visiting Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and
Indonesia. I suppose none of these will work in other countries than
their origin (except perhaps for Hong Kong which might work in mainland
China as well?)?

The phone network has to be able to handle sending/receiving SMS
messages in addition to normal phone calls (SMS messages will probably
be used most, considering the cost/duration of overseas calls).



Hallvard
--
Atari Launchpad : http://launchpad.atari.org
Notator/Creator SL : http://www.notator.org

In article , Thomas F. Unke
wrote:

Unfortunately, Internet cafes are very rare in Japan.

???

Except for some country side towns, I really didn't have many
problems. Not as many as in, say, Thailand, but enough to read my
mails.

I think there are 20 more places you can get access to the internet
since you posted that.

LIke many such things, it is clearly stilli a growth-mode.

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