Yokohama Living

Gone are the days of the extremely expensive 2-minute international telephone calls. We are now in the IP phone age. I often use Skype to call my friends and family and the reason is simple. It is cheap. If it were cheaper it would be almost free. Of course I have to call from my computer and I use a headset but still! A phone call rarely costs more than 30yen. I’m not sure exactly but I think it costs just over 2yen per minute to almost every country I have to ring. I sometimes use it for domestic calls too. The disadvantage of course is that you have to have a computer and be online to use the Skype service. They do doubt free phone calls but really it is just a messenger service. Also there is a Skype phone that you can carry around with you like a mobile phone but you need to be in a hot spot to use it and they are far more rare than you might think in the technologically advanced Japan.

Another option that I have used in the past which is much more convenient but, at least when I used it, a little more expensive is the Brastel card. You can use almost any phone combined with this card to make discount phone calls all over the world. Another great advantage is that you can store the Brastel altered telephone number in your phone and call your friends and family without typing in passwords and such like.

If you know of any other ways to phone home from Japan please let us know.