Yet, as a U.S. traveler in Japan, you are left out in the cold: Your cell phone won’t work at all. Even if you buy your own quad-band plus UMTS (Universal Mobile Communications System) 2100 phone, can you get service for it in Japan? It’s a well-known issue. And with so many American companies partnering and dealing with Japanese companies in the technology, automotive, and many other industries, and with business travel to Japan and back rising, it’s a very frustrating and expensive problem. We’ve searched for true world phones that will work in the U.S. and Japan, and found that the pickings are very slim.

What’s The Problem?

The U.S. is covered by cellular networks that are based on two different and incompatible technologies, GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access). Sprint and Verizon Wireless use CDMA technology; T-Mobile and AT&T (formerly Cingular) use GSM. GSM is the most widely used cellular building block in the world, supporting networks across Europe, South America, and in Asia. In those regions the technology uses bandwidths of 850MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, and 1900MHz. GSM in Japan, however, operates on the 2100MHz band.

It’s even more complicated than it seems. Keith Nowak, senior communications manager for Nokia, explains the GSM situation to us this way: “Most of the world uses a combination of 900MHz and 1800MHz bands, while in North America and some of Latin America, the 850MHz and 1900MHz bands are in use.”

Because of that disparity, for years U.S. cell phone subscribers couldn’t use their phones in Europe. Dual-band and tri-band GSM phones have solved that issue, but Japan, and even more so South Korea, are still problems. Nowak explains further:

“Today, many new devices—even those in the mid price range—have quad-band GSM technology. This means that they can be used in virtually any country that has wireless service. Japan historically has been a different story. Rather than GSM, home-grown Japanese technology has meant that devices would not travel into or out of the Japanese market.”

The Original Japanese 2G network was built on a technology called PDC (Personal Digital Cellular; and only phones compatible with this technology could be used in Japan. NTT DoCoMo’s newer 3G network, known as FOMA (Freedom Of Mobile Multimedia Access), is a UMTS WCDMA (Wideband CDMA)-based system that operates on the 2100MHz frequency band. The other major Japanese cellular provider, KDDI, offers service using CDMA2000 technology (a competitor to WCDMA) at 800MHz. In the U.S., AT&T’s WCDMA system uses the 850MHz frequency band. FOMA works with U.S. GSM systems, so people coming to the U.S. from Japan oftentimes can use their cell phones in the U.S., but that’s a one-way street: Phones using U.S. service will not work in Japan.

The reasons for the different standards are several, but in large part it all boils down to simple competition. GSM was developed in Europe and has been universally accepted there. In the U.S. Qualcomm developed CDMA, and that technology has become the predominant cellular standard used by Verizon and Sprint. T-Mobile and AT&T use GSM. Japanese companies, including NTT DoCoMo and KDDI, developed their own proprietary systems for the Japanese market, as we previously noted. Vodafone entered the Japanese market in the late 1990s, and sold its Japanese business to Softbank in 2006.

Competing service providers partnering with competing technology developers have resulted in competing, incompatible phone services. Customer demand and usage habits have forced interoperability of services within countries, including Japan. In the U.S., Verizon subscribers can call and receive calls from AT&T subscribers seamlessly. When traveling from country to country, however, interoperability problems, while not as pervasive as in the past, persist today, even as 3G networks roll out worldwide.

Nowak says, “When NTT DoCoMo launched its 3G network, it implemented a standard 2100MHz WCDMA network, which is the same as is being launched in most GSM networks around the world. This means that today there are many 3G phones available that combine a quad-band GSM engine and 2100MHz WCDMA capability. So, there is a growing number of devices available that will work in most countries around the world as well as Japan.”

But not in the U.S.

“These devices aren’t as widely available in the U.S. at this time,” Nowak continues. “Since the 3G frequencies used in North America are different than those used in the rest of the world.”

Many of the quad-band phones available in the U.S. work on the 850MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, and 1900MHz bands, not the 2100MHz band used in Japan.

Japanese government regulations enacted last year prohibit foreigners from contracting for cell phone service with a Japanese provider or from buying a prepaid phone. That means that unless you bring your own, with service, the only way you can use a cell phone in Japan is to rent one, which is easy enough, but can be a pain and an additional expense to an already-expensive trip. Or, you can search the world for a phone that will work both in the U.S. and on Japanese networks. We’ve taken on that project for you, to very limited success.

The Phones & Service

A simple Google search for “2100 MHz cell phones” will lead you to phones that will work in Japan. They’re expensive, though, with many costing well over $400. And, once you’ve got your phone, where do you get service?

We called all the major carriers to find out what phones they have that work in the U.S. and Japan, and whether these companies provide service there.

Sprint has no phones and no service in Japan. The Sprint representative pointed to the technology differences between the U.S. and Japan and offered us a rental of a Nokia 6630 for $85 for two weeks, $70 for one week, and $1.99 per minute for incoming and outgoing calls. They will link the phone to your regular Sprint account so anyone who calls your U.S. cell number will connect to you on the rental phone, but that’s as close as they come.

Verizon Wireless also has none. A representative gave us a list of four “global” phones but none work in Japan or South Korea, and they don’t have service there at this time.

T-Mobile was next on our list: none and none. The company does have quad-band phones for use overseas, including Samsung’s t619 and t629 and the Motorola RAZR V3, but these phones don’t support the 2100MHz band, and T-Mobile does not provide service yet in Japan.

AT&T was our last hope, and we finally found success here. AT&T has the Treo 750 and AT&T 8525 phones, which support GSM 2100MHz. Service is through NTT DoCoMo or Softbank using an AT&T SIM chip in the phone. According to the AT&T Web site and confirmed by the sales rep we spoke to, standard international roaming charges in Japan are $2.29 per minute for incoming and outgoing calls. Text messages are 50 cents each; photos are $1.30 per message. Data transfers (GPRS) are less than 1 cent per kilobyte. AT&T’s World Traveler plan costs an additional $50 per month, but the per-minute cost drops to $1.69 in and out. All that is on top of the $55.95 per month U.S. service the sales rep offered us.

However, none of the companies we spoke to that don’t offer service could give us any idea about when they might begin servicing Japan. They merely groused about the technology differences. Until that nut is cracked, your options are few: rent, or call AT&T.

by David A. Finck