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Communications and the Media:
Phones
Most of pay phones in Japan use coins and "Telephone Cards" Telephone cards can be acquired in every convenience store, train station shops and many times the cards are also sold in a sale machine inside or near the telephone. The card's tariffs are 500 yen and 1000 yen units. A 500 yen card has 50 units. One unit is worth 10 yen of talk time. The 1000 yen card has 105 units. You get 5 bonus points with the 1000 yen card. You will need insert your card into the card slot and solely make your call. The charge of current on your card is displayed on the phone. When your phone card is empty during a phone call the phone will beep to let you know and then you have the option of inserting another phone card or coins. At the end of your phone call the phone card will always be returned, even if it is empty.
Japan is considered as a leader in mobile phone technology and usage with about 80% of the population owing one. Mobile phones are very popular, and their products always getting new features such as internet browsers, games, cameras, televisions, electronic wallets/train passes, gps/navigation and music players.
The largest mobile phone companies in Japan are AU by KDDI, NTT Docomo and Softbank (formerly Vodafone, and before that J-phone). Docomo is the most famous company with about 50 million subscribers. AU is next with about 30 million subscribers, while Softbank has about 15 million subscribers.
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