Softphone for overseas travel: а Japanese sketch

One of our managers has recently spent his vacation in Japan. As he himself said upon return, he was on another planet: touching Tsugaru strait, picturesque “little Rome” Nagasaki, incredible Shibuya, fantastic Ginza... Nevertheless, work issues caught him even there: first, colleagues needed a piece of advice, and then was a talk with a client.

Ginza is fantastic

Shibuya and mobile softphone

The first talk was via our mobile softphone. Quoting verbatim: "I’m in Starbucks, snapping Shibuya. Just found a good angle, and the softphone is blowing up. The team wants my opinion about the upcoming release and white label. Okay, discussed. A guy from Brasil stands beside and notices my screen: whoa, never seen before, that's a new one. I told him in a nutshell. Website link, contact exchange, and all that."

Crowded Shibuya and photo hunters

Careful readers surely want to know more technicalities — well, here we are: PBX Asterisk, SIP proxy of our own design, smartphone Samsung Galaxy A35 with Android 14 OS, internet 5G by Sakura Mobile provider.

Just sakura, without “mobile”. But with Mt. Fuji in the background :)

Why mobile softphone instead of a smartphone? The reason is simple: internet calls are cheaper than voice via cell, especially in roaming. This is why experienced travelers directly at the airport buy local sim cards: WhatsApp for nearest and dearest, and the softphone for business calls.

This honored veteran has its own audience but our phone seems to be more advanced

We adhere to the rule: a recorded call is better than not recorded. Records are of high use for situations when it’s needed to know who said what literally, for disputes and controversial issues they are good too. This is why Softphone.Pro can record calls by default (by the way, you can choose: mono, stereo, wav, or mp3, what a wonderful choice). Of course each and every will not be listened to but some of them you’ll need sooner or later, and a stitch in time saves nine.

What a wonderful choice

And shortly thereafter our colleague had a talk with a client.

For us all the clients are precious and dear

Blue Light Yokohama, Blue Desktop Softphone

Our hero got a message: "Client N has a question. You are wanted." Almost a Netflix detective plot.

Blue Light Yokohama

Later it turned out that there was no rush and no one was personally needed: the client simply said the name in the beginning of the call (nice when they remember your name!) but something happened so he asked to call back and hung up. But, let us repeat, all this became known later, after the conversation.

Previously people were connected by phones, now by softphones

We think there is no special need to get deeply into details. Let us just say that the talk was on a laptop running Windows (verbatim again: "I felt I needed to take my netbook on a trip!") connected to Wi-Fi hotspotted by the same smartphone and the same provider — the quality was good. (We’d like to recall that a wired connection is still more reliable. Otherwise there might be choppy audio, breaking up, stuttering and so on — the editor’s note. Yes, but not in every Japanese hotel you’ll find an Internet socket in a room — the manager’s note.)

Instead, some hotels offer free alcohol drinks and exotic mocktails

This is the story. Certainly, it sounds good to have a way to contact anybody anytime; just remember it’s important not to overdo and keep the balance — everybody needs a day off... even diligent managers :)