Telephone

From IkataWiki

The telephone remains the most popular method of communication in rural Japan, where many people still do not own computers or have access to email.

1 International calls
- 1.1 From America to Japan
- 1.2 From Japan to America
  - 1.2.1 Mobile phones
2 Alternatives
3 External links

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International calls

Not only can it be expensive, it's often quite difficult to properly dial numbers in foreign countries.

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From America to Japan

From most residential land-line phones, Japanese numbers are dialed as so:

		Country exit code		Country code (Japan)		Area code		Phone number
1	+	011	+	81	+	(1–4 digits)^†	+	(6–8 digits)

† Important: If the area code begins with a zero (0), you must remove that first zero. Mobile phone numbers all begin with 090 or 080. These must be dialed 90 and 80, respectively.

Example: The Ikata Town Office's main number is 0894-38-0211. From America this should be dialed as

1-011-81-894-38-0211

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From Japan to America

From most residential land-line phones, American numbers are dialed as so:

		Country exit code		Country code (USA)		Area code		Phone number
1	+	010	+	1	+	(3 digits)	+	(7 digits)

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Mobile phones

Mobile phone services may have their own special international dialing codes.

au (KDDI)

		Country code (USA)		Area code		Phone number
005345	+	1	+	(3 digits)	+	(7 digits)

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Alternatives

Because of the significant cost of international dialing, visitors on a homestay may prefer to use an alternative method of communication:

Email. This is by far the cheapest method of communication.
Telephony software like Skype. Combined with the "SkypeOut" service, one can make international calls to land lines and mobile phones for just a few cents per minute (On March 29, 2007 it was US$0.023 to land lines, US$0.154 to mobile)

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