"Andy Martin" <martinandy@hotmial.com> wrote in message news:<uFCTa.259213$nr.10946475@twister.southeast.rr.com>...
> I will be moving to Japan in a few months and I am wondering about what kind
> of telephone plans there are.  I'm wondering if I should get a cell phone or
> a land line?  What kind of coverage do cell phones get?  What kind of plans
> are there?  Here in the US, audio quality is often poor, coverage is spotty,
> and most companies require minimum service agreements.  I also know that
> cellphones have many options, they can take pictures, connect to the
> internet, etc.  What are the best phones, best coverage, best quality,
> etc...?

Since you're from the US, I would say that unlike there (so I hear), a
mobile cannot really replace a land-line, so you probably need to
investigate both.

Also, mobiles are bought with handset and usage contract together
(usually for one year, with penalties for early exit (but there are
prepaid mobiles, although epensive)), and all four big networks
(DoCoMo, JPhone/Vodaphone, Tu-Ka and Au/KDDI) are basically pretty
much 100% over all major built-up areas and call quality is pretty
much the same. As to what are the best phones, what do you want? Each
service provider has lots of different models with lots of different
features at lots of different prices, from zero to 30,000 yen a go,
and of course lots of different usage pricing plans. Decide what
features you want first.

As for landlines, NTT is the main provider. You have to buy your
telephone line for 70,000 yen from NTT (or they do a cheap rental
scheme, 400 yen per month or so), or get a second-hand one, which
shouldn't cost more than about 25,000 yen. There's about half-a-dozen
phone service providers, I use G-Call myself. There's also a few
companies doing VoIP phones, which, especially if you do a lot of
overseas calling, is a nice add-on to an ADSL contract.

Price-wise, mobile usage is much more expensive than the US, I think,
land-lines are about the same, but ADSL is dirt cheap and much faster
- 8Mb/1Mb is low-end, they're advertising 24Mb these days.

Ken