
Brastel Telecom, popularly known as Brastel is a Japanese telecommunication company based in
Tokyo
Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
. They distribute international
prepaid calling cards within
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
and
Asia
Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
via
convenience stores
A convenience store, convenience shop, bakkal, bodega, corner store, corner shop, superette or mini-mart is a small retail store that stocks a range of everyday items such as convenience food, groceries, beverages, tobacco products, lottery t ...
. Brastel's largest target demographic is Brazilian
ex-pats living in
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
.
The company was started in 1996, originally selling callback services. In 2000 they released the first rechargeable calling card in Japan. This product quickly became Brastel's biggest source of income. Recently they have started to invest in
IP phone
A VoIP phone or IP phone uses voice over IP technologies for placing and transmitting telephone calls over an IP network, such as the Internet. This is in contrast to a standard phone which uses the traditional public switched telephone network ...
technology through their
FLiP and
Basix services.
They are also noted for their philanthropic work in Brazilian communities as well as for their involvement in the building of schools, and for providing seminars and lectures for poor and disadvantaged communities around the world.
The promotion of
Brazilian culture
The culture of Brazil has been shaped by the amalgamation of diverse indigenous cultures, and the cultural fusion that took place among Indigenous peoples in Brazil, Indigenous communities, Portuguese people, Portuguese colonists, and Afro-Brazi ...
in Japan has played a prominent part of Brastel since the creation of sub company Tupiniquim Entertainment in 2005.
History
Early history (1996-2000)
Brastel Telecom was formed in 1996
by
Junji Tanabe and
Kendi Kawai, and primarily provided callback system services to the Brazilian community in Japan.
In 1998, an agreement with
KDDI
() is a Japanese telecommunications operator. It was established in 2000 through the merger of , , and . In 2001, it merged with a subsidiary named Au, which was formed through the merger of seven automotive and mobile phone companies from t ...
(formally KDD) allowed the company to acquire international connections from Japan. In 2000 Brastel released a rechargeable prepaid calling card called Brastel Card (formally Brastel Smartphone Card) that was available for free in convenience stores, ethnic shops, restaurants, and bars throughout Japan. Shortly after they introduced a paperless recharge system,
Smart Pit, developed by
NTT Comware
NTT Comware Corporation (エヌ・ティ・ティ・コムウェア株式会社 in Japanese) is a system integration company which serves mainly the NTT Group. It started as the old NTT's IT Services department and was incorporated as a wholly o ...
, which utilized a bar code printed on the back of the card that allowed for payment without coupons.
Expansion (2002-2005)
In 2002 Brastel entered into agreements to use the Japanese PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network), which is controlled by the major carriers in
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
. This allowed the company to acquire connections within
Japanese territory, making it possible for them to start offering their own direct prefix numbers. Shortly after, Brastel entered the
American market, promoting its services in
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
,
USA
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...
, targeting the
Latino and Japanese communities.
The Internet Age (2006-2016)
In 2006 broadband internet became the standard for home-based internet connections. Increased bandwidth allowed free calling services such as
Skype
Skype () was a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for IP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also had instant messaging, file transfer, ...
,
Google Talk
Google Talk was an instant messaging service that provided both text and voice communication. The instant messaging service was variously referred to colloquially as Gchat, Gtalk, or Gmessage among its users.
Google Talk was also the name o ...
and
iChat
iChat (previously iChat AV) is a discontinued instant messaging software application developed by Apple Inc. for use on its Mac OS X operating system. It supported instant text messaging over XMPP/Jingle or OSCAR ( AIM) protocol, audio and video ...
to emerge. To deal with this new form of communication, Brastel diverged into new areas: investing in online
Live Support
Online chat is any direct text-, audio- or video-based (webcams), one-on-one or one-to-many (group) chat (formally also known as synchronous conferencing), using tools such as instant messengers, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), talkers and possibly ...
(Japan-only, launched in October), and providing customers with real-time assistance over the internet in both English and Japanese. During the same year they opened an office in
São Paulo
São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...
,
Brazil
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
.
Image:FlipWikiLogo.gif, Flip Logo
Image:Flipphone.jpeg, Flip phone
Image:Basixwikilogo.png, Basix logo
In January 2007, Brastel launched the FLiP service, an IP phone that allowed customers to call domestic and international phones via the internet. Three months later, they launched Basix, an IP phone service designed for medium and small sized companies based on the
ASP system. While FLiP was intended for the home user, Basix was intended for use by companies looking to replace or buy a
PBX system.
Culture
In 2005, Brastel created a new cultural division, Tupiniquim Entertainment. The division primarily focused on
Brazilian culture
The culture of Brazil has been shaped by the amalgamation of diverse indigenous cultures, and the cultural fusion that took place among Indigenous peoples in Brazil, Indigenous communities, Portuguese people, Portuguese colonists, and Afro-Brazi ...
.
Tupiniquim Entertainment's main event is the Festival Cinema Brasil, a yearly event that showcases films from Brazil. This cultural division has invited several musicians from Brazil to perform in Japan.
Corporate culture
Brastel has a unique working culture, especially considering that it is a Japanese company. Within the work environment, employees are not required to wear a suit or tie, and there are at least three languages spoken:
Portuguese, Japanese and English. This is in addition to the other languages spoken by employees of the company, who are of fifteen or more nationalities. Due to the large Brazilian work force, many aspects of the company are tailored for Brazilians, including a
Brazilian lorry arriving twice a week with Brazilian foods and goods. The employees can also order a Brazilian
bento
A is a Japanese-style single-portion take-out or home-packed meal, often for lunch, typically including rice and packaged in a box with a lid (often a segmented box with different parts of the meal placed in different sections). Outside Japa ...
every day which is delivered directly to the company.
In previous years the company has held an international food festival, everyone is encouraged to cook food from their home country to bring to work to share.
Brastel has also contributed to various charities, built a school for children in
Cambodia
Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...
, and donated money to the countries affected by the
tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...
of 2004 and the
SARS
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by the virus SARS-CoV-1, the first identified strain of the SARS-related coronavirus. The first known cases occurred in November 2002, and the ...
virus.
Brastel Card
The Brastel Card is the Brastel product. Released in 2000, the card had gone through many iterations with the latest one having been released in November 2009 under the current name Brastel Card. Much like prior cards, it could be used to make national and international calls and could be recharged via credit card, at convenience stores, or with vouchers. In addition to the standard calling services, Brastel also offered international access to call from other countries, credit transfer, international call forwarding, international recharge of mobile phones, IP Access and SMS text messaging.
Alongside the standard calling features present in the Brastel Card, the card was then able to be linked to the FLiP VoIP service offered by Brastel. The Brastel Card could be used for cheap international calls as well as for payment of monthly subscription and calling fees. In recent years, the FLiP and BASIX phones have become more relevant to the survival of Brastel as a company, especially due to the popularity of Skype and similar services. Brastel's answer to this was FLiP, a VoIP service with a monthly fee that started from ¥500 per month.
Other businesses related to Brastel Japan
* Brastel BASIX
* FLiP
Partnerships
*
*
NTT
*
KDDI
() is a Japanese telecommunications operator. It was established in 2000 through the merger of , , and . In 2001, it merged with a subsidiary named Au, which was formed through the merger of seven automotive and mobile phone companies from t ...
*
EMOBILE Limited
*
United Nations World Food Programme
*
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(ANA) is a Japanese airline headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. ANA operates services to both domestic and international destinations and is Japan's largest airline, ahead of its main rival flag carrier Japan Airlines. the airline has approximate ...
*
Philippine Airlines
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Philippine ...
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Philippine National Bank
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Thai Airways
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*
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Iraqi Airways
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Srilankan Airlines
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Malaysia Airlines
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The Daily Yomiuri
The is a Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. It is one of the five major newspapers in Japan; the other four are ''The Asahi Shimbun'', the ''Chunichi Shimbun'', the ''Ma ...
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Egypt Air
*
The Japan Times
''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo.
History
''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...
*
Financial Times
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Pakistan International Airlines
Pakistan International Airlines, commonly known as PIA, is the flag carrier of Pakistan. With its primary hub at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, the airline also operates from its secondary hubs at Allama Iqbal International Airport ...
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Air China
Air China, officially Air China Limited, ( zh, s=中国国际航空公司, labels=no, ''Zhōngguó guójì hángkōng gōngsī'') is a major Chinese airline and the flag carrier of the People's Republic of China. It is headquartered in Shunyi ...
References
Sources
Article on Nikkei BPnet (In Japanese)Article on Contact Center Info (In Japanese)Web Site Traffic
Aboutus.orgNews2U article about BrastelWeb Buyers Guide articleStart Option article about BrastelCambodian article about Brastel
External links
Brastel TelecomBrastel CreativeBrastel PromotionBrastel Remit
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brastel Telecom
Telecommunications companies of Japan