I have Verizon and an 8830, this phone has never worked in Japan for me. Recently my phone broke and Verizon sent me a new phone. A few weeks ago I was in Japan. I rented my Japanese keitai Denwa (mobile phone) turned my 8830 on to get some contacts and much to my surprise I had full signal. It took some playing around but I was able to dial out by using 010 instead of 011 for international calls. It acted like the rental phone, has anyone had any similar situations in Japan. I talked to some friends over there and they said that NTT Docomo signed an agreement to release blackberry devices in Japan, I am not sure if that had anything to do with it. Unfortunately there was no data, so no email or web.
Does anyone have any info if data will eventually become available?
Japan uses different frequencies from the rest of the world. They use 1700 and 2100, and I think they are doing WCDMA too. Most phones made do not operate at these frequencies (most work at 850, 900, 1800, and 1900). Don't know how you got your phone to work at all there.
