Short summary – after reading all the warnings about Airalo not working well in Japan, I decided to use Ubigi this time. This was done using an iPhone 13 mini, and an iPhone 13 Pro. I purchased the 10GB for 30 day plan which costs $16 USD, and it worked well and without trouble the entire time I was there, at Osaka and Tokyo.
Longer story:
The Ubigi app can be downloaded in the USA iPhone app store before you leave. Upon arriving in Narita airport, I turned on Wi-Fi and joined the airport free Wi-Fi to connect using the Ubigi app. It immediately offered to create an e-SIM. This process took about 5 minutes; it was not as fast as I thought it would be. For some reason, it goes through a few steps, including a fairly long one where it claims it is “connecting to network”. I have no idea why it takes that long, or what it’s doing, but it took the same amount of time on both the iPhone 13 mini as well as the iPhone 13 Pro.
When that was done, it suggested that I turn off Wi-Fi so it could connect using the cellular network to buy a plan. On the one hand, this is smart because it means it will not be able to sell you plan if the cellular network doesn’t work, so you won’t waste money buying a plan only to realize your phone doesn’t have the correct network bands. But the downside is that it totally borks the next process, which is creating an account!
In order for you to create an account, it asks for an email address, then sends an email to you with a code you have to enter to confirm the creation of the e-mail. Well, since you haven’t purchased a plan yet, your cell network access isn’t active so there is no way for your email client on the phone to be able to retrieve the email! 🙁 So you *do* have to toggle your Wi-Fi *back on* from this point forward to continue. So the quick lesson is, do *not* attempt this process without a functioning Wi-Fi!
I purchased the 10GB for 30 day plan which costs $16 USD. This then brought up the second bug in their system; it offers that you can pay using Apple Pay, with a nice big Apple Pay button next to each plan. This button *does nothing*. I couldn’t figure out how to get it to work at all. They do have an option to enter in credit card details by hand, which is what I ended up doing. It’s using a 3rd party website, so it was kind of sketchy looking and it didn’t inspire confidence. But it *did* work and so far, I see no signs that my card information was been re-sold anywhere but it’s still too early to know.
The good news is that once that was done, the data started working immediately without any need to configure anything. The APN information was filled out automatically and correctly; the network selection was automatic and always chose “NTT DoCoMo”, and nearly everywhere I went, I had 5G signal. The Ubigi app shows you how much data you’ve used, and the amount they said I used lined up exactly with how much the iPhone Cellular usage meter said.
All said and done I would do it again. Aside from the quirkiness of setting up and paying for the data plan, once going the service was flawless.
1 comment
Agreed! I just got back to Australia from a two week trip to Tokyo and also used Ubigi. Absolutely 10/10 service, price and convenience.
You land, you turn it on, you’re good to go. No need to look for a counter for your Sim card or travel router or stressing over it cause you landed at 9pm and the counter is shut or that it is in another terminal. No need to stress about charging your pocket wifi, or stress about losing your tiny Sim card.
I have nothing but praise for Ubigi’s esim!