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Japan: VoIP for the Masses With 050
securitas writes "Red Herring has a brief article about wide-scale VoIP deployment in Japan with the introduction of the new 050 area code. The new area code 'allows plain old telephone service (POTS) to seamlessly transition to voice-over-IP (VoIP).' Japan is now the largest country to deploy VoIP. Six companies have bought 8.5 million VoIP phone numbers, with 68% (5.78 million) of the new numbers owned by Softbank BB Phone. At $.010 for a three-minute call, the cost is three to eight times less expensive than regular wireline service."
Hopefully this means that Japan will put more force onto the US government to switch to VoIP. The system is so much more efficient than plain analog lines. Japan does tend to set trends for the US.
If nothing else, DDR Shows us that much.
And why did you staple the trout to the RAM?
is STILL too much money for a phone call!
Question: When the Enterprise made a call down to Andalusian 3, who paid for the call?
Answer: NOBODY!
voip and pots interoperability is a very good thing. hopefully this will pressure other countries into doing the same.
is $.010 some 3133+ way of writing 1 cent?
It could be $0.0109!
It's very good to see some forward movement in the development of 'real world' VoIP solutions. Let's hope 2004 will be the year when the rest of the world can agree on a set of standards that will allow this technology to bring the global benefits it has always had the promise to fulfill. One of the big downsides to the dotcom bust, was that VoIP was to be the next big area of convergence, and suddenly everyone pulled there investment from it, into bolstering their weakening core markets. With financial statistics for next year looking more promising, let's hope the tide may once again turn toward R&D, and an exciting and innovative future.
BT just introduced a mainstream VoIP service on an 050 code as well.
.10 cents is around the American average per POTS call, VoIP is going to lower the long haul and add extra services, great for America. Wonder why Japan has such high last mile cost, other than the wire mess and bad planning for expansion for copper.
Ah, seems like only yesterday that (old-school) computer geeks everywhere were trying to get AT&T to understand the benefits of using a packet switched network instead of moving to that ungainly dial-switched network from their old operator switched system.
Then again, tremendous waste has always been an aspect of the telco industry.
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Your points are very valid. This is an odd scenario though, people don't need much support from the Telcos to move to VoIP, they just need IP to their home (by whatever means). The TelCos pretty much have to drop their revenue streams or risk losing customers to completely different companies. I personally switched to Vonage about 3 months ago which allowed me to drop my relationships with Comcast and AT&T. In return I've picked up a phone service that gives me all the same facilities that I'm used to, allows me to manage it all over the web and costs me less money monthly. The final boon is their marketing program, they let me (and will let anybody) put a link on my web site that can be used for friends, family and passers by to sign up for the service... if they do they get a free month, I get a free month and we get eternal unlimited minutes to talk to one another. For a startup company the business model looks pretty attractive, minimal hardware, minimal bandwidth management... very different to migrating a fixed line phone business to VoIP. My company pays for the broadband connection to my home, being able to overlay my phone service has been one of the better technologies that I've played with during 2003.
Its quite ironical that the country that was in the dark ages between 95 and 2000 is now leading the way in broadband and related applications while others try to catch up slowly.
Most of the credit should go to softbank bb. It does have a lot of debt from its ventures but hopefully its debt will reduce in the next 2-3 years.
Masayoshi Son (Softbank CEO) was the golden child of Japan's brief Internet boom, and was very quickly derided afterwards by the Japanese technology press.
Of Korean extraction (?) - a gaijin - and with a technical background, it's good too see someone like him get the last laugh over the Japanese oligopolies like NTT and KDDI.
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but it will make the biggest difference in Europe, where the state controlled telecom monopolies have made voice service so expensive that an entire generation is coming up knowing only cell phones. VoIP may bring "wired" phones back in Europe.
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I realize that, outside of North America, most places charge even for local (short-distance) calls. However, I would think that Japan, with it's (relatively small) land area and its highly-developed phone network, phone calls there would be essentially free, or at least free for intra-city calling. I always here that Japan has extremely expensive phone service. Any reason?
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
As do Packet8, Vonage, and quite a few others in the US - this is what most people mean when they say VoIP these days, not weird geek-only talk-through-your-computer systems. Vonage is in fact a bonafide CLEC, meaning there's number portability and all the other stuff you would expect with real phone service (I don't think the rest of them in the US are CLECs at this point). The only difference is the last mile to the phone - dedicated old-school copper, or broadband internet. Of course, you can also argue VoIP is just another internet service that runs over TCP/IP networks. Both arguments seem legitimate to me - frankly, I doubt that services that look, act, talk, and quack like ducks will be able to avoid taxation by claiming "hey, we're not really ducks".
At $.010 for a three-minute call, the cost is three to eight times less expensive than regular wireline service.
What's remarkable about this is it goes over the same exact equipment. YOu can't tell me that the telcos can't compete with this.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
I was in an IT position in a national wireless call center environment back in the mid-90's when VoIP was just starting to ramp up. Things have improved since then I will grant you but compared to traditional telco voice service it still is way behind.
Look at all of the things that can (and do) affect Internet data. DDOS attacks, primary global DNS server exploits, BGP/RIP route poisoning, etc. Awhile back Cisco had to distribute a patch affecting practically every IOS version due to some exploit. Plenty of network engineers were patching away at the very infrastructure of the Internet.
The POTS concept might seem old and passe but it's reliability can't be argued.
Why put VoIP in its own "area code"? In the US, companies like Vonage allow VoIP to be registered with a regular telephone number. In many markets it is possible to reassign your existing POTS number to a Vonage VoIP service.
My puzzle pirates crew has recently discovered teamspeak.
http://www.teamspeak.org
Open source, cross-platform voice chat for games. I set us up a server on my gentoo box. It was incredibly easy and awesome. Web administration interface is really slick. I highly reccomend it. If you have broadband it makes for good free international phone calls.
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Regarding the cost, instead of $0.01, the article states :
a three-minute call on VoIP costs between 10.5 and 10.9 yen (about $0.10)
Of course they could have come right out and said 10 Cents.
The easiest way to avoid this regulation and fees is not to tie into the telephone network, don't use the same 7/10 digit address space and don't claim you can call normal telephones. You do that and there's no fees and no regulation.
And what crackhead is going to pay $24.95 a month for a voip service that can only call other users of that service. Makes about as much sense as write-only memory.
I've been using vonage.com for quite a while now and it's just as good as my old phone but cheaper! I get all the extras for a fraction of the cost.
Whenever there is a story about VoIP I allways hear people saying "it's not good enough to be mainstreem yet" but I've been using it for a long time and it seems pretty damn good to me. I think the people that say it isn't good should give it a try before they shrug it off as a sub par system.
If you want to see how well it sounds just give me a call at 480-282-8517, It's exactly like a POTS phone call in every way and I can wire it through my existing phone jacks if I like.
(I'm not a naive user, I've worked in a datacenter for a good 5 years and I am experienced with almost everything Internet)
Several reasons for Japan's fast broadband growth are as follows:
As has been pointed out, broadband modems are being passed out on the street by yahoo bb, who's service is cheaper than the phone companies' service. They are doing this at a great loss to try to build volume. They also include VOIP functionality, with calls to the US being charged at 5 yen (about 4 cents) a minute.
Unfortunately Yahoo's availability is limited outside major cities. I live in a suburb of a prefectural capital and cannot get service. Another reason BB rates are rising, is that is is the only way to get flat rate internet access, as even local calls are charged per minute. Yes, ~$20.00 flat rate isps exist, but when the phone bill jumps $40, it is no longer a good deal.
Also, although the bandwidth seems high and the rates seem low, the study probably doesn't take into account the fact that you need to pay both the phone company and a seperate isp for most connections. That can easily push the cost up into the 40-60 dollar range, and outside the major areas (tokyo, kyoto, etc.) the bandwidth rates are much lower. My fastest transfer rate was on a RH iso, about 60k over my 12MB connection. The penetration rates and adverstised speeds only show a small part of the broadband picture in japan.
is because we dont even have 56k in some areas still.
not to mention we are barely venturing into dsl, cable and wifi.
this country is more economical than technological.
so it's who ever demands it here.
our govt is interested in two things: Money and killing people, and pushing its influence everywhere.
Well, $0.003333_ is 1/3 of a cent.
I think we're talking about $0.03333_ which is 3 and 1/3 cents.
There is a typo in the story summary, it should be $0.10 per 3 minutes. Check the article.
If we're talking $.010 per 3 minutes, that's 1 cent per 3 minutes, which would be much more then 3x - 8x less than the current going rates.
Very true about Masayoshi Son who I met at an International Compauter Association meeting years ago.
Another was my good friend Roger Boisvert who started the first public ISP in Japan. A caustic Canadian with limited Japanese skills he was still able to get stuff done.
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Full details are at BT's Broadband Voice Website
This is like the fourth story of some technology that japan has adopted widescale before us. In every case I think its due to the population density and not their innovation. If all of the u.s. lived within the borders of Rhode Island I am sure we would all have broadband and VOIP. I realize that u.s. companies prevent lots of technology but I think its location location location that is the real driving force. Try rolling out broadband in South Dakota where the states are huge and the populations aren't. See how much money you will make.
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I think we (us, US) are almost there. When I was signing up for AT&T's $29.95 all you can eat long distance service, the CSA asked me if I had a high speed connection to the internet (don't I wish). AT&T's supposed to be offering a VOIP (or is it VoIP?) phone service this spring
Letting the operator own the address is repeating the existing mistake with numbering plans.
We could make our own gasoline, etc., out of coal. We have plenty of that. South Africa did that when the rest of the world was mad a them for putting the bombers and murders in jail and embargoed them. No! It was not "secret" German WW II technology. It came from us (US). Then there's the West Virginia University professor who has developed a way to 'extend' diesel fuel with pig poop. More fuel, less pig poop run off in the river.
They already have a few competitors who are leading a "race to the bottom" on rates ($20/mo, in the case of Packet8).
increased costs to cover the 'equipment' for this upgrade, then the companies will rake in the profit from the new system without EVER even thinking about passing on the saving unless it becomes a price war. Just like the US networks took advantage of HDTV's expanded signal, to cram 3 times as much low definition stuff into the same bandwidth, triple their commercials, deduct the costs of upgrades, AND increase the cost to users under the guise of a better service which is actually pixelated and inmany cases worse than the analog we had before :(
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errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Oops. Typo.
That should be 10 cents for three minutes, not 1 cent.
I live in Japan and have Yahoo!BB and their bundled phone service, BBPhone. The cost to call within Japan is 7.5 yen for 3 minutes. The cost to call the USA is 2.5 yen for 1 minute. The current exchange rate is about 108 yen/dollar, so these calls are incredibly cheap (about 2 cents/minute). However, the cost to other countries varies (usually much higher; it costs me about 25 yen/minute to call my friends in the UK). Anyway, this is much cheaper than what the new VoIP services will be charging, at least according to the Red Herring article. They state the cost will be 10.5 yen/minute, which is 4 times what I'm paying now. Why would people in Japan switch to VoIP when BBPhone is already so much cheaper than botht he new technology and the old NTT service charges?
BTW: the Slashdot post states that the cost is 1 cent/minute, but that doesn't match the article, which states that the cost is 10.5 yen/minute, which is about 9.5 cents/minute.
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