Telephone bills can add up month on month so I'm always looking for ways to decrease costs. I've been using Skype for a while and while Skype-to-Skype calls are usually good quality, I haven't had much luck with Skype-to-regular telephone (mobile or land line). The rates from Japan to a mobile phone in Japan (17.5 yen are pretty competitive though so I'll be keep an eye on this.
JaJah has been around a while and I've heard of a couple of people using it. I'd looked at it a while back but decided to give it a go again. With JaJah you put in your number and your friends number and press Call. Your phone rings and then you are connected to the other party. You can try it free (land line to land line) without any registration. I've tried it and the quality seems quite good. The rates are perhaps a bit more expensive than Skype (5.85 yen/min compared to 2.38 yen/min Japan land line to UK land line) but much cheaper than a regular phone call (Japan to UK would usually be around 20 yen).
A couple of nice features of JaJah.
- You can schedule a call so you are connected at a pre-set time. Useful when dealing with different time zones (i.e. you need to call someone but it's the middle of the night where they are now and you don't want to forget, or perhaps you want to call later when you won't be at your PC).
- When you put in your own number and the destination number the exact rate is displayed so you know how much you will be paying.
Calls from mobile phones in Japan are still expensive but number portability introduced last year seems to be having some effect and companies are at least experimenting with new pricing plans. The new mobile companies on the horizon like ipmobile should also help.
