We are relocating from the US to Japan in a couple months and had a quick question about phone services. I had lived in Japan back in 2006-2011 right when smart phones were becoming a thing and we had to roll around with a US and a Japanese phone at all times as there was some difference in the signals or something I cant remember. Are there options now for duel sim card or esim phones that can have a US and a Japanese phone number? We have to maintain a US number for two factor authentication with work and were hoping that there was an option. Another option is to just do the Google Fi route and stay only on the US number but as well be there a while we will probably need atleast one +81 number for utilities, deliviers, and what not.
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Get a Japanese virtual net sim (nuro, OCN, LINE, UQ etc) for your phone and keep your e-sim on a US network. I had a dual sim phone with a UK and Japan sim (from OCN) for 3 years while living in Japan.
Create a Google voice number, and verify it with your real US number before you leave. You can unlink your real US number after that and just use the Google voice for dialing and texting back home. 2 factor authorization should work for 99% of things no problem, with the exception that some banks are starting to catch on to VoIP numbers (Google voice is this type of number) and it’s possible you can only 2 factor with email in those cases. Capital One still works for me but Chase didn’t for example. The best part with this approach is it’s completely free between US, Canada, and Mexico. Calling overseas is a few cents per min and comparible to Skype.
The above is assuming you want to do away with your US number for a while. If you want to maintain your US number on your sim card, you can pay a small fee per month to keep the number attached to your sim. I pay $2 a month for T Mobile to keep mine there (no calling or data features, just keeping the number from disappearing) and I just top up with a month-to-month unlimited plan when I go back. That’s just convenient for me because when landing in either country I can use that sim immediately if I topped up beforehand. I have a dual sim smartphone that has IIJMIO (piggybacking on Docomo) and T Mobile.