Skype service stability in Japan
We continue to work hard to ensure that our free and paid services are reliable. Despite that, the experience of some users sometimes is that the regular phone network appears to be more reliable than Skype. Apparently, net being more stable than phones is true in Japan, as reported by one of our friends there. Anyone confirm or deny this with your own firsthand experience?
x says: here’s a fun one… a company I know just bought a bunch of Skype-compatible PC handsets …why?…they can’t rely on the phone companies to communicate during the frequent earthquakes in Japan.
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Jaanus says: so.. net is more stable than phones there?
x says: yep.
x says: even small quakes cause communications to go down here.
x says: there are ideas to have hot air ballons with WiFi repeater attennas on them. When there is an earthquate the balloons automatically fill up and float up a few 100 feet and rain WiFi down on the effected area….interesting huh?!
In a sense, it is true.
In case of disaster such as earthquakes, Japanese telephone company will limit the telephone calls from ordinary subscribers in order to guarantee the telephone calls for emergency services (police, firestation, governments).
So call failure rate of normal subscribers will be higher than normal time.
In contrast, calls via internet are not restricted and calls can be possible as long as net is alive.
The idea of the baloons comes from the exhibition now held in Japan.
Look at the link below.
http://buffalo.jp/expo/index.html
HK is right. That is congestion control.
At the time of catastrophe occurrence such as earthquake, telephone such as “safety verification” increases explosively. When this convergence occurs, telephone company do the congestion control for several days.
Yes, Congestion control.
Thanks, k.daiba.