"skagit- Confirm that you both have earthquake warning turned on AND that you have selected Japanese language for iOS interface, AND you have location settings turned on.   It should be working if all of the above points are true."

"I like how you say "This website does not concur or condone modifying SB's APN settings" but in the previous paragraph, you recommend closing your bank account and running away from your financial obligations.   Hmmm...   To…"

"Actually, that is not correct.   FaceTime and iMessage do not use Cellular voice.  When FaceTime calls are initiated outside of a WiFi network, they use 100% 3G data to carry both voice and video.   It is therefore absolutely possible…"

"As of November 9 2011, confirmed that it is not available.  On their website as well as FAQ, it just says 'in the future' for both functions.     Neither function has been made available in the beta version 5.0.1 iOS, as…"

"Yes- Do the 'official' Gizmodo Japan speed test at...   http://www.musen-lan.com/speed/speed-img.html    "

"I have verified by checking my online KDDI billing that Skype calls do NOT consume call minutes- only data packets, so you have nothing to worry about.   As an aside, I have been using Skype a lot this week on KDDI, and I am not sure if it is…"

"Does anyone here actually get anything NEAR the Softbank theoretical 14.4 Mbps speed?  I am really curious to know.   I think you have to strap your iPhone to the top of the cell tower to be getting those speeds.  With my iPads, I…"

"Hi Ketahi, >As for the fees for sending non-au SMS messages, even with SoftBank, you have to pay 3 yen per message to non-Softbank phones, so there is no difference there. I thought that with the white plan, all SMS is free, to any phone?  "

"I had my iPhone 3G on Softbank and stayed with them for Iphone 4S. I live in Shikoku and had not problems. Also there is no Facetime icon on the iPhone. You access facetime calls from the contact list. THere is a factime option there. I…"

"Ricardo-  You are correct that the KDDI au iPhone Email account is not a push account, so this means that you need to set that account to fetch (and the smallest fetch interval is 15 minutes.).   It is, however, an imap account, so that is…"

"Hi thanks. If I go with softbank, definitely use the free sms...but for au, I don't want to have to pay for each one sent to my non-au friends. So, I'd have to stick with email. (Although I also read somewhere that au email on…"

"Instructions in English here... http://mb.softbank.jp/en/customer_support/wifi.html Basically, you go to My SoftBank website, and download a profile, which will automagically log you in to free wifi (0001Softbank, FON_FREE_INTERNET, or…"

"This is awesome, thanks. Will tweet about it on the official accounts."

"Hi Ricardo, For SMS/MMS, you do not need to use another e-mail address, as long as someone knows your phone number and is also a softbank user, they & you can just send messages to the number, makes it very easy."

"Thanks.   I'm leaning towards au now (network speed benefits mostly) so I'm planning on just using my au email address. But, I'm not looking forward to having one more email address to manage. :O"

"As for me  SMS/MMS is very important, I use it more than e-mail to other iphone users. Very easy and simple for tracking in-coming messages."