OSDN | Our Network | Newsletters | Advertise | Shop     X 
Welcome to Slashdot Technology Programming Science Microsoft United States
 faq
 code
 awards
 journals
 subscribe
 older stuff
 rob's page
 preferences
 submit story
 advertising
 supporters
 past polls
 topics
 about
 bugs
 jobs
 hof

Sections
apache
Aug 22
(1 recent)

apple
Aug 23
(9 recent)

articles
Aug 23
(31 recent)

askslashdot
Aug 23
(10 recent)

books
Aug 23
(3 recent)

bsd
Aug 16

developers
Aug 23
(9 recent)

features
Jul 18

interviews
Aug 22
(1 recent)

radio
Jun 29

science
Aug 23
(7 recent)

yro
Aug 23
(5 recent)

Internet Phones Replacing POTS In Japan
TechnologyPosted by timothy on Tuesday August 20, @05:32PM
from the overdue-over-here dept.
prostoalex writes: "CNN reports on growth of Internet phone services in Japan. The high cost of telephone calls, which many saw as an impediment to spread of the Internet is right now actually a menace to plain old phone companies, as more and more people are switching to VoIP services."

 

 
Slashdot Login
Nickname:

Password:

[ Create a new account ]

Related Links
· prostoalex
· growth of Internet phone services in Japan
· More on Technology
· Also by timothy

<  The Need for Open Hardware | Violence, Video Games And Donahue  >
Internet Phones Replacing POTS In Japan | Log in/Create an Account | Top | 231 comments | Search Discussion
Threshold:
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Replacing pot? (Score:2, Funny)
by NanoGator on Tuesday August 20, @05:34PM (#4107634)
(User #522640 Info | http://slashdot.org/~NanoGator/journal/ | Last Journal: Monday May 06, @03:16AM)
I guess replacing it's easier than legalizing it.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • Off-topic? by SoupIsGoodFood_42 (Score:2) Tuesday August 20, @09:03PM
    • Re:Off-topic? by NanoGator (Score:2) Tuesday August 20, @09:33PM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Overload. (Score:5, Funny)
by AgTiger (agtiger&kc,rr,com) on Tuesday August 20, @05:35PM (#4107645)
(User #458268 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
So now someone's telephone can be slashdotted?

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Well that's a relief.. (Score:1)
by spectral on Tuesday August 20, @05:35PM (#4107647)
(User #158121 Info)
I was worried since i'm going to Japan on Sunday for a year abroad, that I'd be stuck offline for an entire year. If internet phones are big enough to threaten traditional phones over there, I guess I probably don't have to worry too much about that.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Cringely (Score:4, Interesting)
by Knife_Edge on Tuesday August 20, @05:36PM (#4107649)
(User #582068 Info)
I remember an old Robert Cringely column in which he said that a new technology will replace an old one (or win, or something like that), if it is either ten times better, or one-tenth as expensive. And sure enough, this article explains that the cost of a three-minute long distance call went down to 6 cents (I assume they converted from yen) from 68 cents. I'm not saying Cringely is always right, but this theory of his seems to apply in this situation.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
But dial-up access costs a fortune. (Score:1)
by stef0x77 on Tuesday August 20, @05:37PM (#4107654)
(User #529972 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
OTOH, because of the high phone costs, dial up access to the internet in Japan is insanely expensive. An impediment to getting online for many people.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
POTS free for 2 years (Score:1)
by mrmaster on Tuesday August 20, @05:37PM (#4107658)
(User #535266 Info | http://www.benuecker.com/)
Been POTS free for 2 years(coincidentally pot free) and have never regretted it. However, VOip is a cool technology, I just don't understand the use of it in a home setting? I already have my cellphone with free long distance.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
The beef (Score:2)
by jukal on Tuesday August 20, @05:40PM (#4107674)
(User #523582 Info | http://www.openchallenge.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday August 22, @02:36AM)
I quess this is the essentials from that article, which has lots of useless details, including description of someone's long-distance romance :)) :
" More than 300,000 people have signed up for the service from BB Technologies Corp., a subsidiary of Tokyo Internet company Softbank Corp. That's easily more than three times the estimated U.S. consumer market. The service, which began in April, doesn't require a new telephone. With a book-sized modem, one gets voice quality comparable to that of regular voice lines -- at a fraction the cost.

Subscribers to Softbank's Yahoo broadband Internet service get voice over Internet for free. Non-subscribers pay about $10 per month including modem rental after a $30 installation fee. Users keep their same phone number. The broadband service is an asymmetric digital subscriber line that runs over existing wires."

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • The bones by achurch (Score:2) Tuesday August 20, @10:52PM
  • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
This has been a long time coming... (Score:2)
by Cirrocco on Tuesday August 20, @05:40PM (#4107676)
(User #466158 Info | http://www.cirrocco.com/)
And it will continue to grow in popularity. The old paradigm of having a phone hardwired in your house may die off completely considering the declining cost of wireless phones (CDMA and analog) and the increasing use of e-mail and VOIP.

The phone companies will soon have to change their revenue strategies completely in order to enjoy the large market they've had in the past. AT&T continues to raise their prices (up to $.17/minute for long distance now) Pac Bell (here in California) now has value-added services galore. Broadband is being pushed hard (they now have stands set up in the grocery stores for crying out loud)

Just as pagers are slowly becoming obsolete so are home phones. They are still handy, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to justify the ever-increasing cost of having one, particularly when the taxes on them are starting to become almost as expensive as the service itself. You don't have to take my word for it; anyone reading this who lives in the Bay Area (CA) have a look at the taxes you pay on your phone. Ouch!
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Great service with Vonage. (Score:5, Informative)
by www.sorehands.com on Tuesday August 20, @05:42PM (#4107695)
(User #142825 Info | http://www.barbieslapp.com/)
I have been using Vonage [vonage.com] for a few weeks and it has been great.


They provide a Cisco ATA186. The only downsides are:

  • You need a home network, but I had one and a DSL router works.
  • You need a DHCP server, not a static IP network. It was easy to set it up, but they don't say so in the documentation.

The advantage over cell phone is that there are no minutes! It is $39.95 a month and you can choose which area code you want a phone number in. You can forward it to a cell phone when out, or any other phone that you may be at.


[ Reply to This | Parent ]
VoIP (Score:4, Insightful)
by papasui on Tuesday August 20, @05:47PM (#4107715)
(User #567265 Info)
Many of the international calls that you make are already routed through VoIP systems. Eventually all systems will make their way to VoIP. The cable company I work for offers unlimited (and long distances is included) VoIP use for $19.95 a month and includes all the features my landline does and ends up costing me nearly $40.00.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
POTS going out here as well... (Score:2)
by Bartab on Tuesday August 20, @05:48PM (#4107718)
(User #233395 Info)
Lots of people I know only own a cellphone, and don't bother getting a POTS line at all. In areas with cable broadband there's really no reason. Modern cellphone plans have insane numbers of free local minutes and mostly 'local' refers to a larger area than the landlines - for instance my cell is local to San Jose from SF, but a landline call would be long distance.

I have a POTS now, but its mostly for my DSL to run over. When I move I'll either get Cable or a DSL provider that doesn't require a landline. Here's hoping Pacbell goes bankrupt.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Boot your computer, I'm gonna call you !! (Score:1)
by danimrich on Tuesday August 20, @05:53PM (#4107746)
(User #584138 Info | http://www.danielimrich.net/)
So you need to boot up your computer if you're going to receive a call? How would you know? Telepathy?

Note to those running servers at home: I wouldn't like to have one next to my bed ;-)
And those IP phones are quite expensive.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
hmm.. (Score:3, Funny)
by the way, what're you on Tuesday August 20, @05:55PM (#4107757)
(User #591901 Info)
POTS? Don't you mean WOKS?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • Re:hmm.. by Skiboo (Score:1) Wednesday August 21, @06:24AM
Bandwidth? keep VOIP off my ethernet (Score:1, Informative)
by slashnot007 on Tuesday August 20, @05:59PM (#4107779)
(User #576103 Info)
Isn't this going to choke the internet bandwidth. either at the back bone level or the plain old router level. I mean I would be steamin' mad if some idiot sharing a router with me was streaming a video phone while I'm trying to mount a remote hard disk. While the internet backbone may have excess bandwidth local switches dont.

Furthermore isn't Voip ultimately more expensive if you actually had to pay for it? I mean the reason internet service is so cheap right now is that I dont gobble bandwith 100% of the time. If everyone fully utilized their dsl connections theoretical I think we would all be paying more and getting crappier service.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Phone companies shouldn't be scared.... (Score:3, Interesting)
by ADRenalyn on Tuesday August 20, @06:07PM (#4107814)
(User #598918 Info)
They should recognize this as an alternative solution , and capitalize on this opportunity. The mentality they choose instead is one we have seen elsewhere (U.S. Postal Service, RCIAA, etc):

If people are changing from my service to one that is more flexible and cheaper, then I am inevitably screwed.

These people need to take a lesson in business! As far as I see it, if a new technology is making my current service/product obsolete, then I need to study this new technology so that I can offer it myself. If thats not an option, well then you buy stock in whatever company is succeeding you! ;)

Seriously though... I do have a question about the "ownership" of the actual lines used to transmit the VoIP- The article states that it will be using existing wires, and users will have to pay a 'line fee' to the company that owns the physical wires. So does that give the owner any control over how it is used?

-ADR

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Traceroute, at last... (Score:4, Interesting)
by dmuth (dmuth+slashdot@claws-and-paws.com) on Tuesday August 20, @06:08PM (#4107825)
(User #14143 Info | http://www.claws-and-paws.com/)
There's one reason why I've always wanted VoIP: traceroute.

At my old home, I had a dialup connection to my ISP. About once or twice a month when I would dial in for the evening, I would hear *static* on the phoneline. I'm talking like a noisy AM radio type of static. I would hang up the modem, dial in again, and the static would be gone.

My best guess is that there was a faulty wire *somewhere* in the telco's network that was causing the static, and I was unfortunate enough for my call to end up on that wire. (Remember, POTS is a circuit switched network [techtarget.com], the same set of wires is used for the duration of the connection) Of course, when I called Verizon, there was absolutely no way for me to reproduce the problem reliably, so they couldn't do much to help. Had I some equivilent of a way to do a traceroute, I could simply say, 'the link between switch-5.verizon.net and switch-32.verizon.net is dropping packets, please put that in the trouble ticket so the techs can fix it'.

So yeah, I'm a little giddy about VoIP. Almost makes me wanna get a T1 to my current residence and drop the POTS line I have now... Well, I can dream, I suppose.

I'll stop babbling now...
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Vonage DigitalVoice (Score:4, Informative)
by grahamsz (spam-me-not@graha.ms) on Tuesday August 20, @06:14PM (#4107859)
(User #150076 Info | http://graha.ms)
I've recently signed up to vonage digital voice and the techincal service is fantastic.

With some wrangling i've since taken the ata-186 router back to scotland with me. I work for a company in the USA and this gives me a californian phone number and (once i upgrade to the $40 service) unlimited minutes across the usa.

Latency doesn't seem to be a problem although i'm definitely with one of the better uk broadband providers. I'll also soon experiment with setting up QoS on my network to ensure that my 1024/256 doesn't saturate to the point that my voip packets drop.

The main downsides to vonage are:
- They dont let you have the password to the Cisco router which YOU have bought from them - meaning you cant use the second line or easily connect it to a h232 gatekeeper to do intelligent things with.

- They wont bill any credit card which doesn't have a US billing address and wont ship outside of the US (and guyana for some reason)

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
s'more haiku.... (Score:2)
by _ph1ux_ on Tuesday August 20, @06:16PM (#4107877)
(User #216706 Info)
calls on internet
cost less than traditional
users migrating
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Burning question, (Score:4, Funny)
by Spackler on Tuesday August 20, @06:17PM (#4107878)
(User #223562 Info)
homes of the future will be linked over the Internet through all kinds of devices, not just telephones and computers but also home entertainment centers, ovens and refrigerators.

So in this utopian future, a script kiddie will be able to order a steak from my fridge, transport it to my oven, and burn it like my wife, with my stereo blaring "All your filet mignon are belong to us"?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
VoIP to early to replace POTs (Score:1)
by Kakarat on Tuesday August 20, @06:17PM (#4107883)
(User #595386 Info)
There are too many problems with VoIP currently to be able to successfully replace POTs on a widespread basis. Scalability, security and reliability are just a few to mention. Granted the switched networks have their problems too, but nowhere near the problems that could happen if a country was running purely VoIP.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
In Other News (Score:2, Funny)
by dmarx (dmarx@iglCHEETAHou.com minus cat) on Tuesday August 20, @06:23PM (#4107920)
(User #528279 Info)
The TIAJ (Telephone Industry Association of Japan) announced that they would be asking the Diet [Japanese Congress] to pass the DMTA (Digital Millennium Telephone Act), which would make VoIP illegal. "These people get all the benefits of telephone service, but none of the profits go to us!", TIAJ chairman Shinji Shinjisan said. "This needs to change."
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Phones (Score:2, Insightful)
by t_allardyce on Tuesday August 20, @06:30PM (#4107966)
(User #48447 Info | http://www.tf94.com/ | Last Journal: Monday June 17, @06:30PM)
Lots of people use email and IM to keep intouch with friends/relatives and avoid phone bills, especially students :) Most windows installations come with Netmeeting which is an audio/video phone and there are probably free/open alternatives. People need normal phones because they are.. simpler. They have an easy interface, they dont need to load up software, they dont crash, or need re-installing and they are cheap. Also, people like to have a handset that they can slam down, and it feels stupid leaning over your desk to talk to someone with a crappy little microphone. If your willing to pay a fee for the priveledge of having a line then they are fine. Also, i wouldn't trust my computer if i needed to phone in an emergency, infact i dont even trust my mobile, it crashes plenty.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Tin Foil Hat (Score:1)
by phatdawg (jrussell@(the NSA ... g you)apmsafe.com) on Tuesday August 20, @06:33PM (#4107979)
(User #22373 Info)
I would be very wary of something like this right now. Call me paranoid, but with Bush and Ashroft chopping away at civil rights left and right, I would not move to an IP based phone system. Already then can track calls and such I'm sure, but there is bound to be some difficulty integrating some of this information. IP sounds too easy to get a handle on... besides the fast my phone line will work if the power goes out.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • Encrpyt by siskbc (Score:1) Tuesday August 20, @07:31PM
  • Re:Tin Foil Hat by detect (Score:1) Tuesday August 20, @09:30PM
SPAMmability (Score:2)
by gentlewizard (gentleNOwizardSPAM@hotmail.com) on Tuesday August 20, @06:45PM (#4108057)
(User #300741 Info)
On my home phone, I get telemarketing calls maybe 2-3 per day. On my cell phone, I don't get any. In my inbox, I get 40-100.

Seems to me we've crested the peak and are heading down the other side of the spam curve.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Question: CD-quality VoIP (Score:1)
by Ser_Olmy (morten@NOSPAM.pcworld.no) on Tuesday August 20, @07:02PM (#4108146)
(User #95501 Info | http://www.pcworld.no/)
So, I'm curios... wil this ever allow me to have high quality voice communication? It seems to me that realy good audio is something that has never been a priority, either with POTS, analog or digital cellphones. why is that, btw?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
interesting features (Score:3, Informative)
by AssFace on Tuesday August 20, @08:04PM (#4108500)
(User #118098 Info | http://www.myclownpenis.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday July 02, @05:48PM)
I worked for a company that wrote software for a Japaense company's VoIP phones. Those things had some cool features - you could download pictures off the net and use them as icons on the phone's display, and you could download mp3s and use them as the ringer - a different one for various callers, as well as different "lines".

it was neat to see since really nobody uses them here in the states - but apparently it is really big over there.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Considering the fact that (Score:1)
by ctar (ctar&zoo,uvm,edu) on Tuesday August 20, @08:11PM (#4108537)
(User #211926 Info | http://www.citizen.org/)
In Japan, to get a POTS line from NTT, which is pretty much the only provider, you have to buy the rights to a telephone number. This costs about $700. You own this indefinitely, as far as I know, but its pretty much necessary if you want typical POTS service. (This is without the monthly charges which are around $30-40)

Its possible to get telephone from other providers (I get cable, internet, and phone all from JCom, the cable company)

Internet is getting very reasonable...8Mb DSL is being offered for around $40 a month now...
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
ADSL and Net2Phone works for me (Score:1)
by Trane Francks (trane@gol.com) on Tuesday August 20, @11:34PM (#4109366)
(User #10459 Info | http://mp3.com/trane_francks/)
Maybe Net2Phone doesn't offer perfect audio quality, but it's definitely good enough. With full-time ADSL here, I use Net2Phone for all my international calls. What works out well is that although I'm in Japan, I've registered stateside, so when I make calls to North America, it actually costs me less than were I to use Net2Phone to call inside Japan.

With domestic long distance calls being highly competitive in Japan now, there's little incentive for me to get Yet Another Modem to take advantage of the free calls as described in the article. Most of my contact is via e-mail anyway, so phone calls are a rare occurrence in this household.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
NTT Stopped all ISDN and Analog Line Investment (Score:1)
by ittanmomen on Wednesday August 21, @01:13AM (#4109613)
(User #596981 Info)
In a typical Japanese bold strategic move, NTT declared recently that from now on it will only invest into VoIP equipment. Obviously they do not see a future in normal telephone services. As there are glass fibre connections available basically to every household in Tokyo, it makes sense to have just one line going in.

A 100M Fibre connection with one IP costs around 15,000 Yen (~130USD per month).

It seems that most people get around 60 Mbit out of this connection, with the bottleneck being the router.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
cell phones will never replace pots (Score:2)
by Ilan Volow on Wednesday August 21, @01:39AM (#4109692)
(User #539597 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
But a 3G wireless phone might one day replace your microwave oven. Assuming you have enough talk time to cook both sides of the terriyaki.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Re: Internet Phones Replacing POTS In Japan (Score:1)
by valkadesh on Wednesday August 21, @03:00AM (#4109905)
(User #450943 Info)
I dunno, man. You can't get stoned with an Internet Phone.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
What about clarity/SNR ? (Score:1)
by USS.Spock on Wednesday August 21, @10:23AM (#4111253)
(User #602532 Info | http://praveen-linux.8m.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday August 22, @11:55AM)
Hello, I would like to know what will be the quality of this kind of setup ? What about SNR ? Lets say i lose my route to the ISP, is there usually a redunant line ? What are the advantages other than the cost ?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Limited Area Codes (Score:1)
by Hallow (hallow@webmages.com) on Wednesday August 21, @01:41PM (#4112897)
(User #2706 Info | http://hallow.webmages.com/)
It's a shame the area codes to choose from are limited. I'd definately try it out, but most of my family and friends would have to call me long distance or on my cell.

Also, does data work over VoIP? I know it's not a "good" thing to do, but my DirecTivo needs to dial out about once a month via ppp (to report pay per views, etc. - long downloads are actually done over the tv now).
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Just Got Back From J-Land (Score:1)
by Zonaflash on Thursday August 22, @03:58AM (#4117257)
(User #603056 Info)
No worries about the wired situation in Japan. Landlines are exorbitantly expensive due to the NTT monopoly, but the deflationary forces, the local fetish for new technology and new competition means that things are much better just in the last few years. (1) ADSL is available for less than US$30/month in most places with unlimited landline usage and no additional fees. (2) (Free) internet cafes with a lot of terminals are available, though slow. (3) The cellphone technology is outstanding. They've had video phones commercially available in the major cities for about 10 months now. These phones have color LCDs and a video cam and are no bigger than the phones here. Cheers, and enjoy Japan,
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Re:duh... (Score:1)
by stuuf (stuuf133t AT cox DOT net) on Tuesday August 20, @05:54PM (#4107748)
(User #587464 Info | Last Journal: Monday June 24, @07:39PM)
Remember those little movies the computer companies always showed us during the mid-1990's?
In the year 2000, our homes will be controlled by computers, we will all have wireless internet, etc.
None of that actually happenned, only more subtle things like internet phones.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Quantum leap times consumers == ? (Score:5, Insightful)
by driehuis (driehuis@nospam.playbeing.org.no-spam) on Tuesday August 20, @08:13PM (#4108547)
(User #138692 Info)
Customers aren't ready for quantum leaps.

Besides, I'm not holding my breath for next generation wireless. Actually, I believe slow pickup will be its savior, because I just don't believe the bandwidth is there even with 3G to support the beautiful things the telcos had been promising consumers (128 kilobit/sec of data to your handheld? Either the per-byte charges will be insane, or the bandwidth will run out as fast as you can say "porn").

Telephone poles will be there for a long time in locations where burying the cable is not an option. And as long as a cable pair will bring a fast consumer connection to the Internet equivalent of a CO more reliably and cheaply than wireless, I think "fixed wireless" is a lost proposition. Until the next quantum leap in wireless comes around. With wireless, the bottleneck is measured in gigabits per square mile. With wires, it's measured in megabits per cable pair. It just doesn't add up, per square mile.

Wireless is nice as a supplement to wired. That's why i-mode is so popular: it fills an important low bandwidth niche.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
wiretaps (Score:2)
by driehuis (driehuis@nospam.playbeing.org.no-spam) on Tuesday August 20, @08:27PM (#4108621)
(User #138692 Info)
It certainly is no worse that todays phone system. Every US carrier has tapping equipment (that you pay for), ostensibly for law enforcement only.

Your tax dollars at work.

With Internet, you at least have the chance that your calls get routed through China, South Korea Brazil or other rogue countries. Besides, there is way too much Internet traffic to look at.

A friend of mine worked at a big Dutch ISP, and our equivalent of the feds came and insisted they'd be allowed to place a wiretap. He showed them to the multi-wavelength fibers and wished them luck.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Re:The broadband killer app is here! (Score:1)
by zzztkf on Tuesday August 20, @09:42PM (#4108912)
(User #574953 Info)
2480 yen for 12mbps service.
2280 yen for 8mbps service.

both iclude VOIP service.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • 13 replies beneath your current threshold.
    •      		  In fiction the recourse of the powerless is murder; in life the recourse of the powerless is petty theft.
    All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2002 OSDN.
    [ home | awards | contribute story | older articles | OSDN | advertise | self serve ad system | about | terms of service | privacy | faq ]