Making Phone Calls from Japan

theCzar

Hi,

I can't seem to connect any calls from Japan, either domestic or international. I'm with 02 billpay in ireland, and using NTT DOCOMO locally (only network I can connect to).

Anybody got any ideas? Texts work ok but as Mastercard has taken to blocking my credit card on a daily basis, I need to make frequent calls and I'm going spare trying to get the local phone cards and skype to work.

Cheers,

Aidan

Random

It should work ... http://www.o2online.ie/wps/wcm/connect/O2/Home/Explore+Services/Services/Travelling+Abroad/Tariff+Information/Japan/

Not that it helps a huge amount.

Davy

Have you tried the form or ringing them?

Solair

I'd suggest that you go to :


http://forums.o2online.ie/ , register and post there. There are O2 staff monitoring it all day during office hours. So, you might be able to get somewhere.

Otherwise, try turning your phone on and off a few times. It might be something weird DoCoMo.

I've noticed sometimes when I am roaming that I can't get connected for a while. It seems to take a while for the foreign network to figure out that you're authorised to roam or something.

theCzar

Thanks guys. oh so simple in the end. Lonely Planet had the wrong international dial code. To dial a number you have to prefix with 010 instead of 00 as you would expect in most countries (LP said 001). One less thing to worry about.

Solair

00 usually works on all GSM networks, even though it's the EU standard code. It seemed to work fine from the US and Canada's GSM networks. The North American international access code is 011.

What you have to remember is that DoCoMo isn't actually a GSM network at heart, it's UMTS (3GSM), but their original network would not have been GSM at all.

So, it's possible that they haven't got all the Euro influences that other GSM networks tend to have.

E.g. dialing 112 on a US GSM network will also connect you to the 911 service! Even though it's the European emergency number!!

In general, it's best to dial use "+" to dial international codes when outside of Europe, rather than 00.

theCzar

Interesting...

One point though, "+" doesn't work, only manually entering 010 will connect. Annoying as it means every number I have to ring, I need to edit the number in my contacts, then edit it back when I leave Japan.