Using a regular telephone

If you subscribe to a broadband internet service, you can use your ISP's internet phone services. For most of these, you use a normal phone and have a normal phone number. These services are cheaper than NTT and offer free calls between subscribers, but the call quality might be lower. Ask your internet service provider for details.

Yahoo BB (in Japanese only), KDDI and Softbank also have internet phone services for people who do not have broadband internet connections. These are intended to compete with NTT’s basic phone service.

Using your computer

With Skype you can make free voice calls between computers. This service has been growing in popularity in Japan, and manufacturers produce handsets specially designed for it. See http://www.skype.com/.