Best phone options for living in two countries at the same time

[Deleted User]

At the moment, I'm living part of the year in Japan and part of the year in the UK. I'm officially a resident of Japan, but work in the UK so I'm here a lot too. I pretty much split about six months in each country per year.

This makes having a single mobile phone contract a bit difficult. At the moment I'm on an O2 monthly contract (I'm British so had this before moving to Japan), but effectively I can only use the phone properly when I'm in the UK. Any time I use the phone in Japan I get charged a flat rate of £5 a day, which effectively means it's not economical to use it at all outside of specific situations where I have to make a really important phonecall or really need data for some reason.

I've had a look around for a good option that would cover both the UK and Japan and there doesn't appear to be one. There are for the UK and other countries, but not Japan. I wondered if anyone has been in a similar situation and knows what the best deal would be? I'm very reluctant to take out two phone contracts (one in the UK and the other in Japan) as this would be a bit expensive.

eDicky

If you are living part of the year in Japan, obviously you should have a Japan network contract or PAYG SIM, in addition to your O2 contact. Having the two services is unlikely to be more expensive than roaming charges, and gives Japanese callers a local number to phone you on.

Instead of paying the O2 monthly charges when in Japan and not using it, at the end of your contract's minimum term you could convert it to the O2 PAYG tariff of 3p/min 2p/text 1p/MB.

You may find a dual SIM handset useful, but if I'm not mistaken there's no longer 2G service in Japan so you would need one that gives at least 3G on both SIMs at once.

Frozen_up_north

Ex pat friends who live in Spain use dual SIM phones. As per the earlier post, beware that many have only 2G on one of the slots.

You can also have a UK number via Skype and some other providers, so UK based friends/relatives can call you via an ordinary landline number.

[Deleted User]

eDicky wrote: »

If you are living part of the year in Japan, obviously you should have a Japan network contract or PAYG SIM, in addition to your O2 contact. Having the two services is unlikely to be more expensive than roaming charges, and gives Japanese callers a local number to phone you on.

Instead of paying the O2 monthly charges when in Japan and not using it, at the end of your contract's minimum term you could convert it to the O2 PAYG tariff of 3p/min 2p/text 1p/MB.

You may find a dual SIM handset useful, but if I'm not mistaken there's no longer 2G service in Japan so you would need one that gives at least 3G on both SIMs at once.

+1 to the above with the additional bit that as far as I'm aware all dual sim phones can only deal with 3G maximum on the second sim slot so it may be important which way around you put them.

grumbler

Colin_Maybe wrote: »

as far as I'm aware all dual sim phones can only deal with 3G maximum on the second sim slot so it may be important which way around you put them.

My pretty basic phone has "Active 4G on both SIM cards" - Redmi 6

eDicky

grumbler wrote: »

My pretty basic phone has "Active 4G on both SIM cards" - Redmi 6

Both 4G at the same time..?

[Deleted User]

eDicky wrote: »

Both 4G at the same time..?

Apparently yes, that's a first for me.

https://www.mi.com/global/redmi-6/specs/

Edit: in fact the majority of the current Mi, Redmi & the Pocophone all support 4G on both sims although some of them are hybrid sim trays so you'd lose the external Micro SD card support.

pmduk

Colin_Maybe wrote: »

+1 to the above with the additional bit that as far as I'm aware all dual sim phones can only deal with 3G maximum on the second sim slot so it may be important which way around you put them.

There are several manufacturers that do not have this restriction.

stragglebod

Do you need to be contactable on either number any time wherever you are? In which case you'll need dual sim. If you're limited to 4G on only one sim, then if you're only switching locations twice a year you could always swap the sims round when you travel.


If you want to keep your existing phone and it's only single sim, then you could instead set up two Skype numbers, one for each country.



Rather than take out a 12/18 month contract for the UK network get one of the PAYG monthly bundles.
https://kenstechtips.com/index.php/cheapest-pay-as-you-go-bundles


You'll need to find an equivalent for when you're in Japan.


Remember you'll probably need to keep the other country's sim active while you're away, maybe by sending a text or two, depending on the network.

eDicky

My Huawei Mate 10 is also dual SIM 4G.

Anyway 3G on the non data SIM is sufficient to keep both SIMs working in a country without 2G.

There's no need to physically swap the SIMs, just select the one you want to use for data at the time. The problem is when the other SIM has only 2G capability, as with many dual SIM phone sold in UK, and you're in a country with no 2G networks.

d123

eDicky wrote: »

My Huawei Mate 10 is also dual SIM 4G.

Anyway 3G on the non data SIM is sufficient to keep both SIMs working in a country without 2G.

There's no need to physically swap the SIMs, just select the one you want to use for data at the time. The problem is when the other SIM has only 2G capability, as with many dual SIM phone sold in UK, and you're in a country with no 2G networks.

Same for the Huawei P20 and onePlus 3T (and presumably newer models as well).