International calls removed from payphones?

When I was last in Japan, I had to call my bank and realised that it would be cheaper to call them from a payphone then it would be from my pay as you go mobile. Except every grey (and green) phonbox that I could find would only allow domestic calls (this was about 30 phoneboxes in a 5 mile radius), even though I knew that at least one of them did allow international calls a few years back.

When I went back into Tokyo to visit, I did notice that most of the stand alone grey phoneboxes also only allowed domestic calls.

Anyone know why this might be the case?

I still have an IC phonecard with unused credit on it somewhere too...

 

According to NTT they switched the system from IC cards to magnetic ones. Cards with unused credit can be exchanged for free (or a small fee if they are expired).

Info: http://www.ntt-east.co.jp/ptd_e/info/info.html

 

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