Net Phones Taking Off in the Third World

dipfan writes "Internet telephone technology is surging in popularity and starting to make a big dent in telephone revenues in the Third World, for a simple reason: cost. A call from Honduras to the US over the net is just 5 or 10 cents a minute at an internet cafe, compared with $1+ a minute through a telco, reports the Washington Post, which compares the situation to the US where internet telephony "is used mostly by college students and geeks" who have the time and energy to install the software."

quote of the day

[Anonymous Coward]

'internet telephony "is used mostly by college students and geeks"'

• 
  And at some schools [rpi.edu] ... there's no difference.
  

Why are these people complaining about 80 cents?

[Typingsux]

I am calling and paying 3.99 a minute to speak to a girl I don't know, but she tells me I'm her boyfriend. Yea. That's it.

Re:Don't Say "Third World"

[Profane Motherfucker]

No, you're completely fucking wrong. _Third World_ was coined in the 1950's by French demographer Alfred Sauvy. Whilst you may like to think that it's some evil fucking white hooded prison yard racist type thing, it isn't.

The term was an analogy comparing pre-industrial nations pre-Revolutionary France. Pre revolutionary France was the Third Estate -- a downtrodden shithole of poverty, hence the Third Fucking World.

Read up on the fucking etymology of this shit before you assume far too much.