Free phone calls to Japan
 

Caught a blip on the news yesterday and forgot to post it up. Most of the major carriers are offering free calls to Japan through the end of the month. Some are continuing into the middle of April. You need to contact your carrier for specifics or if they are participating.

With the power down and allot of the infrastructure destroyed, will anybody even be able to answer?

I guess that is so people can contact their families....nice offer actually

It is a nice offer and it sounded like most of the major carriers were onboard.

My husband was on the ground at Narita when the quake struck. He said initially they lost all power. Even those with WiFi and cell signals had so much trouble getting through on any lines. He managed to call me after some tries. Probably internet is a good way to try to track someone. Service is probably better now than initially but it'll still be tough goings for comm no matter the route.

Its possible cities are setting up local lists for people to check in with. I know Google set up a person finder app on their home page. I know we were sending out messages via FB and email and those have been the most reliable forms. The issue though is power, everyone says in their status updates "phone battery low, no power so last post for a while' sort of thing.

The phone service we used to call back to the States while in Japan was Vonage. Some folks used Skype to communicate as well. If power is down the Vonage phones will be down too. We've also used Verizon's international plan to call land line to land line between here and there when DH was deployed out there. That service worked fine. Again, power is the issue. And in many cases, are land lines still in tact?

Worth a shot though and glad service providers are stepping up and offering the opportunity.