I've been in Japan for over one and a half years now and in that time
have had no less than four keitais. Each time I upgraded I cancelled my
old contract and started a new one and never had to pay any fees at all
(including when I had a 1-yen J-Phone for only 3 months).
Each time I used a different provider and so had to get a new phone
number, but that was a small inconvenience to save those "stupid" fees.
It is (or was) a totally different story in the UK. Other providers
would actually encourage you to switch to them by allowing you to keep
your existing phone number and not charge you a penny. The downside
though is that if you sign a contract you have to commit yourself to a
whole year. I guess that's one reason why the phones are so archaic
over there!
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Mon Apr 2 05:50:36 2001