Mobal Reviews 825

Had issues getting the esim to work, removed it from device - error message said it wasn't pernament - couldn't replace it as it said it was already activated - support said I had to buy another one.

Support have now said they will replace the esim - DO NOT remove the ESIM from the device when troubleshooting - contact support they are helpful. Changing review to 2 stars.

Date of experience: 10 January 2025

Repeat customer, due to prompt and awesome customer service.

Date of experience: 02 January 2025

I got a Mobal sim with a Japanese mobile number for my recent 3 month stay in Japan.
Travelling all over, from Akita in the north to Okinawa in the far south, the reception was excellent.
The cost was very reasonable and there was no need to carry a mobile wifi.

Date of experience: 02 October 2024

I spend ½ my time in Japan. I need an inexpensive local mobile phone and mobile hub when I'm out and about. We have a land line there. I keep the Mobal line all year. When I'm out of Japan, I can reduce the allowable download so that the cost is minimal. It works very well. It's also a charity, so the expense creates value where it's needed.

Date of experience: 01 December 2024

Mobal is truly a kind and considerate company. They demonstrate their generosity by donating much of their profits to underpriviledged kids and more. Mobal's customer service provides help in plain and simple English. I highly recommmend Mobal.

Date of experience: 22 December 2024

I bought 2 esims with 30 gig/month while in Japan.
Both of them had crazy low speed connection. Like below 1mb/s.
I contacted the customer service, which to be fair was responsive, but they couldn't help in any way.

Edit: the customer service did reach out and outright refunded me for the past month. This was greatly appreciated from my side. So I am changing my review from 1 to 3 stars

This wasn't specific to some parts of Japan as we travelled all over the country and the issue was the same everywhere. I would not recommend their service to anybody. We were desperate for wifi the whole time and would have been better off going for anybody else but them.

Date of experience: 21 December 2024

Good communication. Competitive pricing. Clear instructions. Smooth transaction. Fantastic signal reception. Highly recommended.

Date of experience: 22 November 2024

I ordered my pocket Wi-Fi for delivery in Japan before I visited in November this year. It arrived with no problem, and I recovered it from my friends apartment when I arrived. But then I was not able, at any point, to activate the unit. I requested help from the help site 10 or 15 times, and never got a message back.

So I have the pocket Wi-Fi, but I was unable to make any use of it.

Date of experience: 18 November 2024

Being able to get a SIM card for Japan before I left the US was incredibly convenient and so much easier than trying to get one in Japan. Communicating and entering into contracts in Japan is extremely difficult for a foreigner unless you have a strong grasp of the language and can read and write in Japanese. Plus, it was so nice having a SIM that was already activated when I landed. It saved me the time and hassle of trying to get one here and gave me the peace of mind knowing that I could navigate my way around as soon as I stepped off the plane. And, fact that Mobal donates a majority of their profits to charity was a huge selling point for me. I’ve been with Mobal for 5 years now and have been very happy with the service - I highly recommend them!

Date of experience: 21 December 2024

For whatever reason it does not work. I tried with two phones, an iphone and android and I followed the steps very diligently. Also the SIM card that you have in your phone at the time, may affect your interface. So I made a point of swapping them around in order to get things working.
Three hours later all that I achieved was having watched a number of youtube videos on how to create an APN and wasted both my morning and 25£. No refund is available.
Maybe this is a service specific to US phones. But given how unreliable it is and might end up with you wasting your holiday time and your money, I would definitely not recommend it.
Save yourselves the pain and just get a prepaid sim card from a booth when you land at an airport in Japan. Both Narita and Haneda have these.

Date of experience: 15 December 2024

The internet card was a really good quality and worked super well. It was easier with an apple device but the people from this company are very kind and offered us help on how to make it work on our samsungs too. We didn't have any problems even in the mountains where service is often bad. We are very happy and if we come back to Japan one day, we will for sure buy them again! :)

Date of experience: 01 November 2024

Unfortunately the tourist data Sim that I purchased just never worked on my Android system phone, despite using the instructions issued with the Sim card and instructions in email with customer services. I had to buy a pocket wifi as although I was only in Japan for 10 days, really needed data for maps etc! The Sim card did work for my friends, who had iphones.

Date of experience: 10 November 2024

I (US resident) currently have an active e-SIM from Mobal in my Samsung android phone. I did tons of research before coming to Japan (for 3 months) to try and figure out the best way to be able to use my mobile phone for local calls, texts, and data while I'm out and about on the street. It was so overwhelming and confusing, as everyone was telling me something different. But I ultimately went with getting an eSIM from Mobal.

When I first arrived at Haneda, it was a bit tricky trying to figure out WHERE to pick up my eSIM. Turns out, the desk where I was to pick up the eSIM seemed to be an 'all purpose' pick up desk. It didn't seem to be solely for Mobal customers (so you shouldn't be looking for a desk with a big MOBAL sign). That said, I can't recall exactly what the signage was at the pick-up desk. It may have had a small Mobal sign, somewhere on the desk, but when you are first looking around the entire airport, it will be hard to find. I was able to ask one of the tourist information folks, who pointed me in the general direction....

Once I settled into my accommodations, I turned my focus to setting up my eSIM. The instructions were VERY complicated and confusing. There are many steps you have to take. And in fact, I even had two other young people - young people typically being very adept at things like this... - and even they had a hard time setting up my eSIM. It was only after repeated tries that we finally realized that we were doing something wrong. And, frustratingly, there is NO CUSTOMER SERVICE to be found at Mobal, so don't expect them to help you. Oh sure, they have an email address, but what good is that when it can take them MULTIPLE BUSINESS DAYS (which can translate to five actual days) to reply to you?? As every one of us knows, back and forth emails is NOT an effective way to problem solve. Very irritating, and considering the money that we are paying to Mobal, to provide us with a SERVICE.

Now... to get to my actual phone/text/data service with Mobal's eSIM... While it was nice to have a local phone number (which helped in the rare instances where I needed to provide a telephone number, say to sign up for a local yoga class, or to make a restaurant reservation), I honestly think I probably could have done without a local phone number. I don't think the yoga studio, or any restaurant, would have NOT allowed me to sign up for a class, or a reservation, without a local telephone number. In addition, while my having a local telephone number helped in the instances where I needed to speak with the management company of my short-term rental apartment, again, we probably could have done a work-around. (For example, in the rare instances where I needed to call a company in the US...say my US bank, etc., I simply used Skype. I obviously could have also used Skype, to make calls to any local businesses here in Japan. And for any local friends here in Japan, I could - and often DID - simply use WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or LINE to communicate with them.) So, again, all things considered, I didn't really NEED to have a local telephone number.

As for the data, as others here have mentioned, while it worked great in the beginning, once you reach your monthly data limit, it becomes challenging, with sites taking a long time to load up.

It's also not clear to me, how the billing from Mobal may ultimately look. Are they going to charge me, after all is said and done, for 'extra data' that I used (beyond my monthly allotment)? It's beyond frustrating, that Mobal provides no option to speak with a Live customer service rep, and in English (since, obviously, anyone wanting an eSIM likely is not a Japanese resident/speaks Japanese).

Next time I come to Japan, I think I'll just try getting a pocket WiFi from Japan Wireless (to ensure I have plenty of data when I'm out on the street), and then use a mix of email, LINE, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Skype for my communications, while in Japan....

Date of experience: 26 November 2024

I am completely at a loss to understand the positive reviews for this mobile service provider. I have had the WORST experience with them! I purchased a data only and a voice plus data sim from Haneda and have had nothing but trouble from them from day one. They do not like working in Australian iphones that is for sure. I ended up having to spend extra money on a 'cheap' (equivalent of about $150 AUD) android phone in Japan to get the voice plus data to work. The data only sim eventually worked but reception has been extremely patchy. I am currently sitting in a hotel in downtown Kawasaki and the best it can give me is 3G coverage which cannot even open email. I would NEVER buy this brand sim again.

Date of experience: 23 November 2024

I experienced not a single trouble during my stay in Japan, everything worked perfectly. I got professional help withd adjusting my mobile phone settings properly. It was quick and easy.

Date of experience: 31 October 2024

I bought a 30 day data only eSIM for our trip to Japan from England. I installed it in the UK the day before travelling and once I got to Japan, it was activated. I had great fast coverage wherever we went, from Tokyo to Osaka, with some rural towns in between. I had better and faster coverage than my UK sim provider and was very pleased that I had it.

Date of experience: 24 October 2024

Used this everyday whilst traveling around Japan. It worked much better than the cheap device I got last time which never had a signal or much data. Having huge data meant I could watch anything for as long as I wanted during long Shinkansen rides. I didn’t have to sweat about how much data I was consuming so kids were happy too. So glad we got this. Big help when you need to use Google Maps/ Goggle translate or research places to go and eat at.

Date of experience: 17 October 2024

The service was activated immediately, there were not any problems with the data usage, no delays and great connection.

Date of experience: 14 November 2024

I used this company's esim for 12 days while staying in Japan. It was working great all the time and I didn't have any problems with access to the Internet. I really recommend it

Date of experience: 31 October 2024

I finally made it to Japan and it surpassed my expectations- Tokyo is just wow! You definitely need a reliable SIM partner and I fully recommend Mobal. My data eSIM was easy to install and it came in very handy.

Date of experience: 29 October 2024