Hello, good people of /r/japanlife.
I recently signed up for a Ahamo plan for my sim-lock free Xperia 5 iii I brought with me from Europe. After the SIM was delivered in a comically large carton, I went through the set-up process but my phone could not connect to the network. Today I talked to the support and after they confirmed all of my settings to be correct, they arrived at the conclusion that because my phone was not bought from docomo, they cannot help me any further and I am on my own. They also don’t know why my phone cannot connect to the network and that because docomo is not doing anything different, I might run into the exact same problem at au, softbank etc.
As mentioned my phone is a brand new Sony Xperia 5 iii (XQ-BQ52) I bought on Amazon in Europe. It does not have a SIM-lock and I previously used it with two different Europeans phone carriers without any problems. This is my first time connecting it in Japan though. All of the APN settings are correct and were triple-checked by a docomo person, VoLTE is also enabled.
My questions for you are, does anyone have a clue what might be wrong or had a similar experience? Does anyone know what I should do now with my signed Ahamo contract if I end up not being able to use the SIM? Has anyone brought over a SIM-lock free phone from Europe or even my exact model and can tell me which carrier is able to handle it?
3 comments
Have to tried setting network to only LTE (i.e. no 5G?)
The problem is Sony. They don’t like non domestic handsets. They make sure that they don’t work here.
LineMo is the last operator with 3G, so you should be able to use it even if 4G and 5G are not working on your phone.