I will be going to Japan for exchange for a year, and am very troubled by the phones and wifi and data connection. I need to use google maps on my phone as I have zero sense of direction.
My school will help us set up a bank account but it takes two whole months to do that, after which then I can get a phone since most phone companies need a bank account. Unless I set up the bank account myself that is, but that requires a deposit.
Anyway, sorry a little off track, I've 'researched' a lot on monthly rental for portable pocket wifi. So far I've read on globaladvancecomm (daily/ weekly) which is also let's internet (for the monthly version). Let's internet provides very little info, just that it's download spped is 25mbps and upload is 5mbps (something like that). After reading the models on it's daily version which is globaladvancecomm, I figured that the model for their monthly rental is the 3G version, which explains to low download speed. Their rental is 4250yen a month.
I found another one which is more tempting, that is from netage, but the website is only in Japanese, althought google/ bing translate works quite well. Their monthly rental model is GL10P, which supports up to 110mbps for download, which is a lot of difference. And if I rent it for a year, I will have a 50% discount on their 6k monthly yen rental, which is 3k yen a month, which is way cheaper than let's internet. But, this price excludes the 'insurance' and tax, which in total, adds up to around 44500yen a year, which is sstill slightly more expensive than let's internet, but given the speed it's very tempting.
But, another thing is, let's internet will not make you pay if you lost the device - you just need to make a police report. Considering that I'm staying for a year, I rather be safe than sorry and that policy is very tempting too. If it's damaged: no payment needed either.
Now for netage, if you buy their 'insurance' you wouldn't need to pay if it's flooded, spoiled etc. But, if you lose the device, or the device gets stolen or totally damage you need to pay 28k yen. Which is a lot.
Another thing which I'm not so concerned about, but feel like I should post in case there are people who want to know, Let's internet provides free delivery back to them in a specialised envelope, but for netage you need to post it in a parcel, which cost about 500yen, which isn't a lot.
I've read about the service from Globaladvancecomm in this forum and so many people have praises for it. There's also a thread for monthly rental from Let's internet here:
http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+115397, but they didn't say if the price of 4250yen includes gst.
So I've had some info for Let's Internet, but I want to know about netage. How's their service like, and if the coverage is good, if their staff is helpful when you had problems etc.
I also found some others like sbau, aicom, but their website has very little info.
Please also do let me know if anyone have used any other monthly wifi rental for long periods, preferable more than 2 months. Thanks and sorry for this long post.