Comments on: Rogers Wireless Blackberry in Japan

By: Phweeb

Phweeb — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 02:54:41 +0000

Shalom and so forth,
Dude, I bought a BB9500 in bali last year and brought it back to Japan with me and went through hell trying to get it connected. Its a totally handicapped device with no wifi to start with! Big mistake on my part.
Anyway,
Finally a month ago a friend who works at the local DoCoMob shop called me and told me the secret. Its called a ‘FOMA’ sim card. So naturally I went down to see what he was babbling about. And guess what,
he popped it in and as soon as it booted up it registered on the network，full bars， 3G with the funny `I can do anything blackberry mark’, and began to downloading about 8000 old missed emails and various messages and calls. WOW!! SPEED!!
Everything worked amazingly! Browser, IM, etc. and new icons and service books i’d never seen before!! after playing with it for about 10 min to make sure i wasn’t dreaming or being tricked. he took it back removed the sim card and told me the hitch.

The NTT DoCoMo FOMA sim card is for Japanese citizens or permanent residents only. Can only be acquired with a two year contract. the services are basically unlimited everything within Japan for a flat rate of roughly 15,000yen per month more or less. But i really mean unlimited everything. Until you try to roam that is. outside of japan this little monster will cost you the price of the phone for a 10min phone call. and thats just for receiving one. I’m sure you could buy a new car for dialing someone.

But, it’s for real. it works, and there is a way, to make your blackberry work here in Japan like it’s never worked before.
It’s actually really impressive.

So, this is new information for everyone. Please circulate it thoroughly. I don’t know much about computers. just found you using a google search about this and clicked randomly on you.

I’ve done my part.

Love Peace and BBQ Grease Bro.

Phweeb.

By: raj

raj — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:09:25 +0000

Dear Keith,

If it’s got UMTS, then it certainly should. The 8707s worked well on BES, didn’t test the voice capabilities. The Bold should be just as good, if not better.

By: Keith

Keith — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:03:37 +0000

Hi Raj, Do you think the new Blackberry Bold released on the Canadian Rogers network, will work in Japan. Looks like it supports the UMTS 2100/1900/850Mhz.

Keith

By: raj

raj — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 18:25:42 +0000

The only UMTS BB that I know is the 8707 series. Telus does NOT support BB in Japan. You’ll have to switch to Rogers or some other GSM provider in order to get going there and even at that, no guarantee since Rogers’ support is so disjointed in this area.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:55:52 +0000

Raj,

Great site with lots of useful info. I currently have an 8703e BB CDMA with Telus account. I figure I am no-good for Japan. I am willing to buy an 8707 and set-up with Rogers if that will work. Question: is there any change to make the Telus account work, or are the frequencies just wrong? Can you give me step-by-step instructions for setting up with Rogers or Vodafone or someone else?

I am desparate! Thanks,

-Andrew.

By: raj

raj — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 16:36:30 +0000

Hey SN,

Sadly the Pearl doesn’t work in Japan. The 8707 is the only BlackBerry that works but the general lack of available product on the market makes for a pricey device. Expect to pay $1000+.

The alternative is to get something like the Nokia E61 (not to be confused with the E62 that Rogers peddles) and use it’s capabilities either with Exchange or BlackBerry connect.

By: SN

SN — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 13:36:46 +0000

Raj, we are with Rogers as well. do you think BB Pearl will work in Japan? or do we need UTMS handsets that supports 2100 MHZ? Thanks for any insight.

By: nagu

nagu — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 01:17:57 +0000

Vodofone in japan is nothing but Softbank. That is the relation vodofone have with japan. This relationship would have helped the vodofone to help you comfortably when it came to the querries on roaming in japan

By: raj

raj — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 22:58:03 +0000

Hey Anthony,

2G SIM was fine. As for PIN, browsing and voice – never used it. Just used the BB email attached to our corporate Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES).

The BlackBerry dot Net is supposed to be on all accounts but for some reason, it wasn’t on mine so when I called their support, they located the issue and fixed it.

As for calling Rogers and telling them that you’re going to Japan. Forget about it, they’re useless. The only thing you want to make sure is that your voice plan is has international roaming enabled… if you’re going to use voice.

Cheers!

By: anthony

anthony — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 22:53:14 +0000

Hey Raj,

I am looking into the Rogers BB workin in Japan, so you used your regular existing 2G SIM in your 8707v and just had to make a call to Rogers CS telling them you are going to Japan?

I have to ask them to add “blackberry dot net” to the account? this is not default on all bb accounts?

so to confirm you had full blackberry services, PIN, email, browsing, obviously voice is good.

thanks in advance for your help!