Just five percent use fixed line telephones daily in Japan
I’m not really much of a fan of voice calls in any shape or form, and I do find it difficult to hear properly on a mobile phone, but it seems I am very much in the minority in Japan judging by the results of this survey by JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into voice calls.
Demographics
On the 9th of July 2008 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in either the public or private sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 77.0% of the sample were male, 8.2% in their twenties, 34.7% in their thirties, 44.1% in their forties, 12.4% in their fifties, and 0.6% in their sixties.
My use of my home phone is limited to once every two weeks when I have a midnight teleconference, and my mobile phone to perhaps once a month when I need to contact my wife more directly than with email.
Research results
Of the initial 331, only 285 people were currently employed in the public or private sector. I don’t know why there always seems to be a big over-reporting of employment within JR Tokai’s research pool. These 285 were asked the following question.
Q1: Who is the service provider for your fixed line at home? (Sample size=285)
NTT 65.3% KDDI 9.8% SoftBank Telecom 2.8% Internet Service Provider’s VoIP solution 16.5% Other 1.8% Don’t have a fixed line 3.9% Compared with when the last time this survey was performed (no date given), NTT has lost 4.1 percentage points and Voice over IP solutions gained 4.7 percentage points.
For this question, the 11 who did not have a fixed-line phone were excluded.
Q2: On average, how often do you make calls from your fixed-line home telephone? (Sample size=274)
Five or more times a day 0.4% One to four times a day 4.7% Several times a week 20.8% Once or twice a week 16.1% Several times a month 18.6% Once or twice a month 20.1% Several times a year 9.9% Once or twice a year 0.4% Almost never 9.1% For this question, the 9 who did not have a mobile phone were excluded.
Q3: On average, how often do you make calls from your mobile phone? (Sample size=276)
Five or more times a day 7.6% One to four times a day 35.5% Several times a week 26.8% Once or twice a week 10.5% Several times a month 12.0% Once or twice a month 4.7% Several times a year 1.4% Once or twice a year 0.0% Almost never 1.4%
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Martin said,
July 14, 2008 @ 23:14
Are fixed lines expensive in Japan?
In Taiwan line rental approaches NT$ 0 ; not quite, but its low enough for me not to bother canceling the additional 3 lines into my house (back from the days that this was a home office). Fees are (compared to a mobile phone) trivial as well ; so the phone gets used quite a lot actually.
Dan said,
July 15, 2008 @ 09:22
They are quite expensive here — about 70,000 yen ($700 USD) to own the rights to a line. Many people will buy a “secondhand” line which works just as well, but is much cheaper. Or, you can also rent a line.
martin said,
July 15, 2008 @ 11:34
Hi Dan, thanks for the update.
Taiwan has a state-run more-or-less monopoly which keeps prices low on purpose — they don’t want any competition to appear.
Crazy enough it works. Service isn’t half bad either, it takes usually about a day for a mechanic to appear in case of any problems and you can find a service center in every major city block.
This (like Taiwans excellent postal service) will probably all fall apart as soon as salaries go up ; they keep a lot of people employed.
Lynn said,
July 16, 2008 @ 08:21
I most definitely sympathize with your views on voice calls (how can anyone hear anything over the phone?)
It seems in America that no one I know (college age, at least) has a fixed phone line that they use… I wonder what the official statistics are compared to Japan.
Shane said,
July 20, 2008 @ 10:31
Not too surprising considering the extent to which most people in Japan are practically married to their phones. To be sure, even in the U.S. fixed lines are becoming less and less necessary.
Roxanne said,
July 23, 2008 @ 02:51
It would be interesting to know how many stream their emails through their mobile devices. In the States companies like 123Together deliver this capability to thousands of SME’s — for reference: http://www.123together.com/blackberry-special/index.xhtml.