On Wednesday, 26 December 2012 09:34:14 UTC+11, John W.  wrote:
> I brought my cell phone (RAZR Maxx) to Japan. I know it will work, have received my little "welcome to our network" texts, etc. I have the global data plan to use. Problem is, how do I dial a phone number? I haven't really tried yet, but it's expensive to just go playing around and dialing wrong numbers. Will I dial it just like I would if I had a Japanese phone, or do I dial it as if I was dialing from the US?

Once you roam onto another country's network you follow the 
dialling conventions of that network. So treat it as though
you had a Japanese phone.(*)

When it comes to billing, it depends on the arrangements 
your home provider has with the network(s) you roam onto.
Usually for calls to numbers in Japan you'd pay an inflated
price, but less than for full international calls. I'd check
with Verizon's WWW site to see what you'd pay when roaming.(**)

(*) I used my Australian SIM in Japan last year. I made calls
successfully as though I was using a domestic keitai.

(**) In the bad old days you could cop some horrible charges.
I first used an Australian mobile in the UK and France in 
1998/99. It was OK in the UK, where there were agreements in
place, but in France a local call was treated as two 
international calls in series: Fr-> Au->Fr.

Jim