Internet access in Japan (was Re: BitTorrent swarms have a deadly bite on broadband nets)

Wed Oct 24 16:31:00 UTC 2007

Frank Bulk wrote:
> Here's timely article: "KDDI says 900k target for fibre users 'difficult'"
> http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=20215&email=html

KDDI isn't the only ftfth provider... NTT east/west (flets), usen,
softbank/yahooBB and others all play in that space.

100/100 from softbank appears to be ~7200 yen while 50/12 dsl is about
4500 yen if you have a phone line as well... ;)

Obviously if you live out in the boonies like Jared, even in japan your
options are pretty slow. The Onsen I visited in fuji-hakone 2 years ago
had only 3Mb/s for example.

> Frank
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-nanog at merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog at merit.edu] On Behalf Of
> David Andersen
> Sent: Monday, October 22, 2007 9:21 PM
> To: Leo Bicknell
> Cc: nanog at merit.edu
> Subject: Internet access in Japan (was Re: BitTorrent swarms have a deadly
> bite on broadband nets)
> 
> On Oct 22, 2007, at 9:55 PM, Leo Bicknell wrote:
>> Having now seen the cable issue described in technical detail over
>> and over, I have a question.
>>
>> At the most recent Nanog several people talked about 100Mbps symmetric
>> access in Japan for $40 US.
>>
>> This leads me to two questions:
>>
>> 1) Is that accurate?
>>
>> 2) What technology to the use to offer the service at that price  
>> point?
>>
>> 3) Is there any chance US providers could offer similar  
>> technologies at
>>    similar prices, or are there significant differences (regulation,
>>    distance etc) that prevent it from being viable?
> 
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/ 
> AR2007082801990.html
> 
> The Washington Post article claims that:
> 
> "Japan has surged ahead of the United States on the wings of better  
> wire and more aggressive government regulation, industry analysts say.
> The copper wire used to hook up Japanese homes is newer and runs in  
> shorter loops to telephone exchanges than in the United States.
> 
> ..."
> 
> a)  Dense, urban area (less distance to cover)
> 
> b)  Fresh new wire installed after WWII
> 
> c)  Regulatory environment that forced telecos to provide capacity to  
> Internet providers
> 
> Followed by a recent explosion in fiber-to-the-home buildout by NTT.   
> "About 8.8 million Japanese homes have fiber lines -- roughly nine  
> times the number in the United States." -- particularly impressive  
> when you count that in per-capita terms.
> 
> Nice article.  Makes you wish...
> 
> 
> 
>    -Dave
> 