This winter I’m traveling to Japan for two and a half weeks to study abroad, and while I’m there, I’ll obviously need to stay connected. Unfortunately, that’s a lot harder than it sounds.
Japan has four major cellular brands, but I only looked at the two most famous: NTT Docomo and au. Both had plans at reasonable prices. For about five minutes, I felt like a responsible adult who had planned ahead.
Then I remembered my phone.
My iPhone 16 Pro is unlocked, so a Japanese SIM would work on it just fine. The problem is that I’m on a T-Mobile plan that lets me upgrade every two years (thanks, Dad!), and I wanted to use that upgrade on an iPhone 18 Pro. But a new financed phone means the lock comes right back, and a locked phone can’t take a local SIM. If I upgraded, I could buy T-Mobile’s international data, but I wouldn’t get a Japanese phone number. If I wanted the number, I had to keep my old phone. I was stuck in the middle, and all I wanted was to text my host organization and look up train times.
Honestly, I should have seen it coming. Even in the United States, cell data is a pain in the neck, even on the best plans. When I first moved to Hoboken, my phone suddenly stopped receiving calls and texts but kept working fine on cellular data, which left me trapped in a prison of kind-of-working service. Every time I called T-Mobile, they said everything looked fine and told me to restart my phone. It wasn’t fine. They sent me to Apple, Apple sent me back to T-Mobile, and this went on until it finally got fixed.
For something as ubiquitous as cell data, you’d think the big brands would have figured out how to work together. They haven’t.
My solution, such as it is, is a plan through a company called Mobal, the only one that would give me a Japanese phone number without making me go somewhere in person after I land. Every other option made me jump through hoops.
Here’s how it works: Mobal sent me an eSIM that I can set up before I leave, and it comes with a real Japanese phone number. That means I can call and text locally without hunting for a SIM counter after a long flight. It costs about $70, which is a little steep for two and a half weeks, but it was the only option that let me get everything sorted before I board the plane.
And the upgrade I wanted? Off the table, for now. The new phone would come locked, and T-Mobile won’t unlock a financed phone early. I checked.
So I’ll get to Japan connected, with a Japanese number and my old phone, after more research and phone calls than anyone should need for something this basic. Why can’t cell data be simple?
