They’ve announced the procedure for switching carriers but keeping you keitai number. Finally!! Although you can do that in almost any country, you can’t in Japan. So this is a big deal. It’ll be easier to consider buying the ipod phone when it comes out. MNP will begin on November 1st, will cost a few thousand yen and take about a day to switch over. You can do it over the internet as well. Yippee!!
Yes, finally! During my time in Japan, I switched to nearly every network provider: 1st yr was with H, 2nd yr with DoCoMo, 3rd yr with J-Phone/Vodafone, and now AU. Needless to say, my friends were pissed in needing to update my info on their keitai annually. And to be honest, I’m gonna stick with AU from now therefore this number keeping thing came a bit too late.
“Although you can do that in almost any country…”
Not in Canada, you can’t… The latest rumblings from the CRTC are for September, 2007 :-(
We got that in the US 2 years ago. It would have been sooner, but the cell phone companies sued and delayed, saying that it would be too expensive for them and there’s already competition in the marketplace and there was no demand for it (from their board members).
We’ve had it for a few years, and guess what? Cell rates haven’t gone down that much, but more features such as free mobile to mobile minutes and rollover exist now that probably would never have if competition wasn’t there.
I’ve tried figuring out the various keitai service plans and my head nearly imploded…
In Singapore, the attempt to retain mobile phone number while switching carrier is a half-hearted one. It was carried out 2-3 years ago. people who had their number retained will also issued with a new one from their new carrier. As such, your friend can reach you via your old number, they will fail to recognise your new number when you call them. the new number, instead of the old one, is transmitted.
wonder is this similar in your case?
Taiwan: YES
But it will cost you about 7000 yen(NT$2000) to change the carrier. At first, everyone expected there will be a large number of carrier switchs. However, only less than 1% of total users really switched due to the high cost and the little saving of different phone rates. I think Japan will have that kind of thing, too.
WoW ! way-out !