help - I have a client in Japan
 

whose BB (cingular) 7290 (I THINK) is not getting a signal for either voice or data. I called Cingular support earlier today and everything is "provisioned correctly for international data, voice plan and is provisioned for international roaming.

The tech did something on their end and then advised me to tell him to take out his battery.

i just got an email from him that its still not working. Poor guy. Any suggestions? I THOUGHT Japan wasn't GSM? Also - the roaming part of tech closes at 10.

Japan does not have GSM, only the proprietary Japanese 2G PDC/PHS, 2.75G CDMA2000, and 3G W-CDMA(UMTS/FOMA) phone systems. There is no way that the Cingular GSM only phones will get service. Check out the following link.

http://euc.jp/misc/cellphones.en.html

toddz

Yep.

There are two types of network in Japan. WCDMA/UMTS 2100 (NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone KK), and CDMA 1X EVDO (au by KDDI). No GSM.

BlackBerry will not be available for use in Japan until the 8707v arrives.

Just fabulous - thank you so much for your answers. I've talked 3 separate times with Cingular. (He has an 8700 by the way) - all three claim he should be getting service yadayadayada. He's been paying for international service since january in anticipation of this trip.

Then the reps were idiots. There is no possibility for an 8700 to get service in Japan.

dc/dc

I know you're not a rogers user but rogers.com/roaming is a good place to get gsm/gprs info on international destinations.

Japan is listed with two 3G but no GRPS networks.

Thanks for the link... I'm able to get the same information from my carrier, T-Mobile.

See my post above for the carrier information. The 3G referred to by Rogers is WCDMA (aka UMTS).

Wikipedia has some GREAT info on the various networks...thought I'd pass on a link for anyone interested....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G

Although it doesn't talk about what all carriers have what, it does give a rough idea of who has some of them.

Zro

I am biting my tongue trying not to give this advice. If anyone really needs BlackBerry functionality in Japan, you should look into the Nokia E61 or E70 phones. Both have BlackBerry functionality (I don't know how much) and if you purchase the correct model it should have W-CDMA/UMTS. Just be careful as there are two models of these phones one for N.A. and one for everywhere else. The N.A. version does not have W-CDMA.

Also, please don't flame me about Nokia's BlackBerry implementation, I really don't care and am just trying to provide a solution that RIM hasn't yet.

toddz

I provided that exact same advice in another thread about Japan. Forgot to put it here.

The E62 is the NA version I believe you are referring to.