Using my mobile in Japan

Murmansk

I'm going to Japan and want to use my mobile phone there for data only. It seems you can easily get hold of tourist SIMs there that just allow you to use data so that's OK and of course I can use wi-fi. Don't want to use my home SIM with roaming as it's £8.00 per megabyte!

The thing is, after a great deal of research and even after emailing the phone's manufacturer I'm not much more confident than 50/50 that the phone will work there. It's an Honor Play by the way, so very recent.

Anyone got any experience of this?

grumbler

https://www.gsmarena.com/network-bands.php3?sCountry=Japan

4G capabilities LTE 850, LTE 1500, LTE 1800, LTE 2100, LTE 2500
3G capabilities UMTS 800, UMTS 900, UMTS 1500, UMTS 1700, UMTS 2100

https://www.gsmarena.com/honor_play-9230.php

3G bands HSDPA 850 / 900 / 2100

4G bands
LTE band 1(2100), 3(1800), 5(850), 8(900), 38(2600), 39(1900), 40(2300), 41(2500) - China

LTE band 1(2100), 3(1800), 5(850), 8(900), 34(2000), 38(2600), 39(1900), 40(2300), 41(2500) - India

It seems that 3G can depend on the Japanese network.
With 4G it's even less clear - even https://www.hihonor.com/uk/product/10044248721055.html is extremely evasive about 4G bands of UK version.

Murmansk

Thanks for that

When Honor emailed me they say that the UK version of the phone is as follows:

4G LTE TDD: B38/B40/B41
4G LTE FDD: B1/B3/B5/B7/B8/B20
3G WCDMA: B1/B2/B5/B8
2G GSM: B2/B3/B5/B8

Doom_and_Gloom

Personally I'd not risk the SIM in case it didn't work.
Not that I know much about it. Our hotel came with internet and we screenshot everything we needed before going out each day. However personal internet would have been much easier.
You can get unlimited pocket WiFi which would be better as no worry if it will work or not and if more than one of you you can share it.

grumbler

B38/B40/B41 = 38(2600), 40(2300), 41(2500)
B1/B3/B5/B7/B8/B20 = 1(2100), 3(1800), 5(850), 7(????), 8(900), 20(????)
see also https://www.frequencycheck.com/bands/lte-band-38-td-2600
B7 = 2600, B20 =800 ??


850 and 2100 I see in Japan. I guess it's again likely to depend on the network.


MiFi can be a good option, if you can avoid making and receiving normal calls.


Funnily, I know a person who went to Japan with 2G-only phone and was surprised that it didn't work there.