As for service, the biggest factor is where you use the phone.
Each carrier has different spots (literally!) and areas where they do not work.
Its a bit of chance which carrier is best for you.
For instance, in my old seat on my office, DoCoMo worked
perfect, Au was OK and JPhone worked horrible.
I moved and nothing much changed except JPhone ceased
to function entirely.
Recently I've moved again. Now JPhone works every time, AU is still
average, and DoCoMo drops connections like mad.
(This moving was all within 50 feet or so!).
It really varies a lot!!!!
I use TuKa which uses most of the same lines as AU. Sometimes I get a
connection where JPhone and DoCoMo fail (in the boondocks of Japan)
and sometimes my friend with a JPhone gets a connection where mine fails
miserably.
(like on the whole underground of the Oedo sen).
Go with any of them. If you need a bilingual phone get one.
My few friends that use PHS find it works in more varied
locations than the popular carriers (DoCoMo JPhone TuKa AU).
Your best bet is if you have someone you call a lot who uses AU
, use AU. If that person uses DoCoMo get DoCoMo, etc. This way
you get a slightly better connection. I find sometimes that I get a bad
connection when a friend of mine is using a different carrier.
The reason for these spots is that the lines are transmitted by antennas
which
in order to get the maximum area, sometimes, the lines do not overlap entirely.
The result of this money saving procedure is that there are lines scattered
about
Japan where the connection drops off completely. If you have access to info
on where these lines are and avoid them you will get better connections....
but I don't know who has this information. There are some areas for all the
carriers
where transmitters are missing entirely and no service is available. This
information
is available from the shop where you buy your phone. So check your apartment
and your work place that they are covered before you purchase.... fortunately
mostly
everywhere is covered now by all the carriers.
I has a friend awhiles back who got some kind of booster device to allow his
phone to work better. If you are worried, you can look into that, but I don't
know if
it is portable or not.
Brian Smith wrote:
> I realize this may not be the best location to ask this, but it's hard to
> find good information for a gaijin like myself.
>
> I'm going to be in Japan a year or two. I'm not new to Japan, but this time
> I'm going to need a cell phone. Can anyone tell me what the pros and cons
> of going with JPhone versus Au would be? People are telling me that Au has
> generally superior service (less drops, more accessible) but that JPhone has
> superior bilingual phones.
>
> Can anyone comment?
>
> Thanks
>
> This mail was sent to address paul.lester@lincmedia.co.jp
> Need archives? How to unsubscribe? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/
--
-Paul Lester
paul@thetamusic.com
Received on Sun Feb 9 17:56:52 2003