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Internet Phones Replacing POTS In Japan

Posted by timothy on 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."

4 of 228 comments (clear)

  1. Overload. by AgTiger · · Score: 5, Funny

    So now someone's telephone can be slashdotted?

  2. Great service with Vonage. by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 5, Informative
    I have been using Vonage 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.
    --
    Fight Spammers!
  3. Re:This has been a long time coming... by geekoid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You don't think you'll see the same taxes moved to the other communications methods?
    sure, some people may enjoy a 'tax relief' but it is only a temporary one.

    I know somebody who had his phone line shut off, went completly VoIP and cell. He had to pay about 2 bucks a month NOT to be connected.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  4. Quantum leap times consumers == ? by driehuis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --

    Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.