Patrick Sherriff@rdviii Dearest Rod, in your international travels, do you ever get a SIM card to use abroad? I’m not quite sure how to go about it or if it is worth it since wifi is easy to find in the UK. Don’t know anyone else to ask who might know.
Rod Van Meter@patricksherriff I have done it, and some people are pretty fanatical about doing it, but I have more or less decided it isn't worth the hassle. First, you have to have a phone that's unlocked ("SIM free" in Japanese parlance), which by default isn't true in Japan. Then you have to invest the time to understand the different parameters involved in buying a SIM: minutes, bytes, speeds, caps, what happens when you run over...
@patricksherriff and since you don't want to get stuck without, you wind up buying more than you need.
Then you have to actually find a physical SIM that matches your phone. That's where there's one spot of good news: eSIMs, where you just buy it online and a magic number gets installed in your phone, eliminates that hassle AND means you don't have to find a kiosk, BUT it's harder to install correctly than a physical SIM.
Then you have to actually find a physical SIM that matches your phone. That's where there's one spot of good news: eSIMs, where you just buy it online and a magic number gets installed in your phone, eliminates that hassle AND means you don't have to find a kiosk, BUT it's harder to install correctly than a physical SIM.
@patricksherriff and the big catch: turning ON the new SIM means turning OFF your existing one, so you lose phone number voice and SMS.
@patricksherriff in short, my practice these days is just to scavenge WiFi where I can, do without when possible, and turn on roaming data only when I am desperate.
@patricksherriff but keep in mind: Japanese phones generally bill on the Japanese clock, so if they are charging you by the day you can easily cross JP midnight and pay for two days.
@patricksherriff finally, you know that I am WILDLY disorganized in both logistics and money, so you should discard this advice entirely and make your own decision about how much time you are willing to invest in order to save a few yen.
@rdviii @patricksherriff Thanks Rod. I think we can safely not go the SIM card route. Thanks for explaining why we don’t need it.