Mobile Broadband Abroad £9.99 For 24hrs Option Still Available?

[shirokuro]

Dear Vodafone,

I have a Top-up-and-go £15/1GB mobile broadband SIM/dongle, and will soon be traveling to Japan for several weeks or a couple of months. When I'm there, I hope to purchase a local pre-pay mobile broadband dongle (probably from carrier e-Mobile who operate a 1700MHz UMTS/HSPA network). However, it may be a couple of days or more after arriving before I get the chance to purchase it, so in the meantime I may use the Vodafone dongle as a temporary measure.

I know that your internet roaming charges recently changed, and according to the following page, I should be paying £29.99 for 50MB for Japan (Zone 2).

http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatch/Port...;pageID=OS_0097

However, I also found another page on the vodafone site, which mentions that a £9.99 for 24hrs option is available for some countries, and Japan is listed. See this page:

http://www.abroad.vodafone.co.uk/index.cfm...;le=1&sn=s3

So my questions are:

1) Is this £9.99 option available, and if so, in Japan? Or is this page just outdated information that hasn't been changed yet?

2) If this £9.99 option is available, is it available on my top-up-and-go account? Or is it only for contract dongles?

3) If it is available to me, how do I take advantage of it? What do I have to do to get this rate?


Thanks so much in advance for your help!

Craig

[JohnA]

I'm afraid Vodafone don't allow roaming on Top up and go mobile broadband. The prices therefore are for contract only and I believe the £9.99 / 24hrs rate has been replaced by the new zone 1/2 daily rates you mention so that wouldn't be available even on contract.

Getting local prepaid access in Japan usually involves some registration proving your identity and residence. Certainly possible but not as easy as elsewhere unless you get someone local to do it. You would probably need a local dongle as your existing Vodafone one even if unlocked can only work on Softbank's 2100MHz UMTS network. It won't work on eMobile.

Perhaps your best option is to rent in Japan which is quite common amongst visitors. At the major airports the main networks are geared up for this and you have a choice of networks and can compare prices. You then get billed for your use to your credit card until you drop off the dongle so it's quite convenient. It's probably fair to say that in terms of coverage outside major cities, eMobile being newer has less than than others like DoCoMo or Softbank (which used to be Vodafone Japan).

So no really easy and cheap solutions but some things to consider.

[Retired-PaulE]

hi Shorikuro,

John A has taken the words right out of my mouth (Cheers John )

There's not much more to add to this, so if you need anything else give us a shout

Paul
eForum Team

[shirokuro]

Thank you John and Paul for your answers!

About the pricing, yes that's what I suspected!

However, regarding roaming on the Top-up-and-go, I am in the US right now, and roaming on the top-up-and-go works fine! I havent used it much - just to test it, but it works no problem.

In addition, I took the SIM from the dongle and put it in a phone, and it received an SMS from Vodafone immediately stating that roaming support had recently been added to the top-up-and-go mobile broadband. (I use a Mac and the software doesnt seem to support SMS on the Mac, that's why I put the SIM in a phone to check the SMSs).

This was a couple of weeks ago, and I haven't tried it since (I have local contract service in the US, so no real need to use the Vodafone here) so unless it was some temporary glitch or something, it seems that roaming IS now supported on the top-up-and-go mobile broadband.

I am aware that when I bought the top-up-and-go it specifically stated that roaming was not supported, which is why I was so surprised when it actually worked! Perhaps they have changed this, but just not communicated it through all channels yet?

About my options in Japan, I've done a lot of research into this over the past few weeks, and as far as prepay dongles go, I think e-Mobile or b-Mobile (MVNO upon Docomo) are the main options. b-Mobile seems more expensive so I'll try the e-Mobile option first. I know that to get a pre-pay SIM (for phone voice calls) in Japan, you need Japanese identification documents (the most visitor-unfriendly policy if ever I heard one) but not sure about for data dongles. If it turns out they won't sell one to me without such identification, I should be able to get a friend to purchase it on my behalf.

A bigger problem I'm having is how to get data on my iPhone when I'm there. Since prepay SIMs with data service are not available at all in Japan, I'll either be roaming, renting, or going without!

Thanks again for your help!

Craig

hi Shorikuro,

John A has taken the words right out of my mouth (Cheers John )

There's not much more to add to this, so if you need anything else give us a shout

Paul
eForum Team

[JohnA]

I hadn't realised Top up and go now allowed roaming. Clearly a recent change.

It looks like you've done your homework but assuming the Top up and go roaming rates are the same as contract then with Vodafone, provided your data use is <25MB / day it would be cheaper to use a normal PAYG sim for data rather than a mobile broadband sim. You would have to get the APN settings right though.

As for the iPhone I guess you are even more restricted as the only sensible local option is Softbank and whilst sim rental is cheap enough, data use is very expensive.