How do I use my iPhone 5?

I have a Japanese iPhone 5. I'm planning on visiting home in October. How can I use my Japanese iPhone in the states? I doubt I'll use it while home much anyway, but while traveling there it'll be convenient, like letting the folks know that I'm back, etc.

So what will my options be? My carrier is SoftBank,btw.

Softbank doesn't unlock iphones so for data your basic options are to use it sparingly with international roaming (data capped at about 2000 yen per day, but its still quite expensive), turn off data roaming and get a rental wifi hotspot for data, or turn off data roaming and only use it when you have free wifi.

Using it for calling is a slightly different situation. Your phone will still have a Japanese number so its not very practical to use for calling/receiving calls within the states. You may want to consider getting a prepaid or rental if you will be making lots of domestic calls.

I'm sure there are plenty of places in the USA where you can get the phone unlocked - regardless of SoftBanks choice not to allow it.

Anybody with a bit of skill can unlock a phone and there are usually loads of little unofficial phone shops or outlets which offer the service.

Then just stick a different SIM inside it which you've bought from USA.

Unfortunately its not quite that simple. If your iphone 5's software is up to date then it is not currently possible (as far as I can find out) to do a jailbreak or hardware unlock.

The other method is to do a factory unlock (with an ime number via your carrier or via other websites). The only problem is that this only works if your carrier is supported by this system, and softbank is not.

If you do find a way to unlock your softbank iphone 5 (and definitely let me know if you do) then you can just pop in a supported rental/prepaid sim and go.

That sounds complicated. I'm not very tech savvy. ^^. I probably won't use the phone much at home compared to here since I need it for practically everything. Back home I rarely ever used a cell phone, but had a prepaid one in case of an emergency. I could just reactivate my old prepay phone while home.

Thanks for the information guys.

I know this is old, but just noticed the other option. How do you shut off data roaming?

Sorry, another question about cutting off the roaming data. So if I cut it off and only use it if connected to wifi anyplace, do I still get charged? Like if I surfed the net on this thing or used Skype or LINE or checked work email that would be charged somehow?

Back home, my family has wifi.

Anyone?

No, you don't get charged when using WiFi

So if I cut it off and only use it if connected to wifi anyplace, do I still get charged?

no

Fyi, there now seems to be a device available that piggybacks on your sim to unlock the phone. They cost about 3000 yen. I'll look for the link.

Wow, thanks! And I look forward to the link. ^_^