japan17

Staring up some research on mobile data plans while in Japan. A pocket wifi device is a very popular option and frompineapples has a rundown on vendors. Decent prices, fast speeds, lots of data capacity, but it’s a shared resource that also needs charging (or an extra battery).

Global Advanced Communications and the Wifi Rental Store look like solid starts. Delivery of the device to your hotel appears to be a common convenience, otherwise pickup at the airport is an option.

bmobile offers a data-only SIM card for mobile phones that are unlocked. Their plan goes for 21 days and offers 5 GB of data. But at its cost, you could get two SIMS for phones for the price of one pocket wifi. That means you’d have two phones that work independently, not tethered to the proximity of a pocket wifi. And since you’re using your own phone, you already have its charging routine down with perhaps an external battery charger. But since you are most likely using a non-native phone, you can’t connect to Japan’s super high speed data network. The hardware and network commonality is at 4G, not LTE.

Depending on the number of devices, we may have to go with a hybrid approach. One shared pocket wifi along with a few SIMs, one per family? More research to do…