phone plan

[Joey]

Hi,

in one month i'll be going to Japan for college and am wondering if there are any good phone plans available that will allow me to stay in touch with family and friends here in the US.
Right now I'm looking at the international skype plan, but a phone plan that allowed me to call the US from a cell phone in Japan would be a big plus.

Thanks in Advance!

[JonB]

For home Skype international plane at 1,500 yen per month is definitely a good option. Mose ASDL providers will also have IP phone plans. I used to use YahooBB and this is good for domestic calls as well - before we had that I could phone the UK or US cheaper than my wife could phone Nagasaki!!! NTT is probably the most expensive carrier in the developed world!

So what did I used before YahooBB and Skype? Well I still do actually - Brastel they have good plans from mobiles too. Probably cheaper to call the US on Brastel using a mobile than Nagasaki using NTT

[skrba]

I am using VoipBuster (www.voipbuster.com) to call from PC to landlines, it's much cheaper than Skype, and you can call developed countries for free up to 3 hours per week.

[JonB]

Will definitely check it out but 10,000 minutes a month is over 38 hours a week - which is hopefully enough for my son talking to his grandmother which is usually about 2 hours a day at the moment!!!!

[skrba]

Sorry, I made a mistake and checked again, it's not 3 hours but 300 minutes (5 hours) free per week!

I really don't have a clue how much money you need for that amount of time, but you can do it by opening a few number of accounts on VopiBuster and use each of them for 5 hours per week. The minimum price was 10 Euros (around 1700 yen) for 6 months, so if you open 8 accounts they will probably be enough and it should be the cheapest way. Besides that, son can speak for free and still you have credits to call extra time or use for other purposes. Anyway, even if you pay, I found it the cheapest so I am using it to call family in Europe.

[Jenkie]

Yeah like the Voipbuster Skrba is talking about there are tons of IP-companies out there who provide free calls to landline phones in a wide selection of developed countries (including Japan and the US!). So check it out I personally used PoivY when I was in Japan and with the same 5 hours a week like voipbuster there is a LOT of money to save!