VoIP Gateways

Internet telephony is fast becoming popular in Korea with more than 10 million people using VoIP today.

According to a Korean newspaper, nearly three out of 10 Koreans who subscribe to landline phone services use Internet telephony. The success of Internet telephony is good news for telecom operators in the region where landline phone market had long become stagnant.

According to the Korea Communications Commission, the number of Internet telephony subscribers broke the 10 million mark at the end of last month. This is a huge number considering Internet telephony was introduced Korea just five and a half years ago.The biggest attraction of Internet telephony is affordability – 80 percent cheaper for intercity calls, 20 percent lower for calls to mobile phones and 95 percent cheaper for international calls.Yet analysts say the growth of the Internet telephony market is sluggish when compared to the growth of smartphones. In Korea, 10 million smartphones were sold in a span of just a year and four months.

There were complications with the service at first, such as bad connections and the mandatory use of the 070 prefix, reports Korea Joongang Daily.In 2006, there were only 330,000 subscribers and the following year, 610,000 – accounting for a mere 1.4 percent and 2.6 percent of all landline phone subscribers in the country, the paper continued.“The KCC belatedly acknowledged people’s reluctance to accept the 070 prefix – which was often mistaken for spam because telemarketers’ numbers usually begin with the same or a similar prefix. In 2008, it announced that Internet telephony customers would no longer have to change their phone numbers,” the paper said.“Internet telephony is now Koreans’ daily communications medium. We will continue to offer various services to VoIP users to alleviate the burden of communications fees,” the KCC said in a statement.

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