🚀 go-pugleaf

    Date: Sat 25 Jan 86 10:11:28-PST
    From: Ole Jorgen Jacobsen <OLE at SRI-NIC.ARPA>

    The latest in pay-phones in the UK is the PhoneCard, you buy cards
    which come in various values, 20 units, 40 units and so on.  (One
    "unit" = 10 pence). These cards are used on special phones which
    display the remaining units on your card (I believe they are
    stored magnetically). Again you pay for what you get and you're
    not faced with additional calling card or credit card overhead
    charges. Best of all, you don't need change!

They have these in Japan.  Unfortunately, there aren't many phone
which accept them, so at this point they're more of a novelty.  The
NTT man I was visiting in the south of Japan was amused that I used
one to call him from Tokyo.

Another fact of about using Japanese pay phones is that, due to the
shortage of international lines, pay phones are dropped to the bottom
priority for (international) outgoing trunks.  Worse yet, the pay
phones themselves are specialised -- only the green ones (the same
ones which accept the cards) will make international calls.  So in
effect, if you want to make an international call from a pay phone in
Japan, do it at night from the centre of a big city.