Japans Own

How does texting to Japan differ from texting to people in your own country?

I live in the UK andI know very little about mobile phones; i just use a pay as you go setup and don't know anything about my phones (sony ericsson k700i) ability in contacting people in other countries. Is it possible to text people in japan? If so, is there anything I need to consider (ie costs)?

Public Comments

1. depending on your plan, it shouldn't cost anymore than the regular text fee. it should only cost them extra when they text back.
2. The texting address on almost all Japanese mobiles are actually an e-mail address. If you ask your friend for their address, you can text them from a PC e-mail to their phones.
3. Japanese phones work very differently from regular phones. It all depends on which carrier in Japan you would like to text. For softbank only certain carriers around the world will work for international SMS. here is the list. http://mb.softbank.jp/scripts/english/3G/global_service/sms/area.jsp Just put the Japan country code at the beginning of the Japanese phone number. Japans country code is +81. Example: +81 *** **** **** All japanese phones come with email (unless the person turned it off). This email is used to SMS people on other carriers in Japan and computers. If your phone (which it can but I am not sure about your plan) does email then you can just use that. Hope this helps!
4. There are several ways to text from one phone in Japan and depending on the carrier, different charges. But for example, there is S!Mail which has a limited no. of characters and is usually cheap or free to send especially to people using the same carrier. Long Mail, longer and more expensive. Email - you can send and receive actual email. The phones have regular email addresses on top of their numbers. You can attach video and photos and sometime flash movies that are provided on the phones. Of course you can type in Japanese or English.