Dirsensei Web Directory Blog

The Japanese are taking over again the market and this time its Warp Speed for the Internet.

Americans may have invented the internet but the Japanese are running away with the technology according to a Foreign Service Post I have read. Broadband Services in Japan is 8 to 30 times faster than in the US and most of all offer cheaper rates. Imagine that. Broadband speed acceleration in Japan, South Korea, other parts of Asia and much of Europe is pushing its technology to the next level to innovations that are likely to remain closed for some years in the United States. (monopoly and politics I guess)

The speed allows the Japanese to watch broadcast quality, full screen high definition television programs over the internet while mocking the low quality images the American firms offer. With its ultra high speed applications being rolled out, for teleconferencing on medical fields which allows urban doctors to diagnose disease from a distance or telecommuting in distances, by 2010 Japan can meet its goal for most professional people to work at home.

Why ? Japan has made it possible to manage and have a good relationship with the government in terms of regulations while the US is pumping it out at Capitol Hill. The facts are the copper wires in Japan are newer and has shorter loops. Competition among phone companies have been awarded a tax break and most launched a nationwide build out campaign of new wires making the lower capacity wires obsolete. Nippon Telegraph and Telecommunication (NTT) now offers speeds of fiber optic 17 times as fast from a cable company in the US and the ratio are about 8.8 million homes have this fiber optic lines installed that is roughly 9 times the number comparable in US homes.

Japan also has tested a telepathology system and will be implemented next spring. This allows pathologists to use remote controlled microscopes using high definition conferencing to examine tissue samples from hospital patients in rural areas without access to major hospitals. They only need a clinic with the right microscope and a phone line with fiber optic connection. (Wow !! What a development)

Google’s vice president Vinton G. Serf, has said that sometimes regulatory commission has to have a strong federal regulatory framework to ensure a competitive framework happens in a constructive way. There are many laws pending at Capitol Hill and legislators need to speed up some of it in order to catch up.

Here are facts provided by ITU and WTI Database in 2006:

Broadband Subscribers in Industrialized Nations:

(per 100 inhabitants)

South Korea - 24.9

Canada - 17.6

Switzerland - 17.0

Sweden - 15.1

Norway - 15.0

Israel - 14.3

Japan - 14.1

Finland - 12.8

US - 11.4

France - 11.2

Britain - 10.3

Monthly Rates in Japan for fiber optic connections are often lower than that for slower connections in the US; Price and download speed in megabits per second.

Japan

Fiber Optic - $ 36.58/100 mbps by NTT

Fiber Optic - $ 39.22/100 mbps by Yahoo

Cable - $98.20/30 mbps by J-Com

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Washington DC

Fiber Optic - $39.9/ 5 mbps by Verizon

DSL - $29.99/ 3 mbps by Verizon

Cable - $52.95/8 mbps by Comcast

Cable - $41.99/ 5 mbps by Cox

In Japan the the regulatory wars are far from over. Speed is always a valuable asset for companies offering communication services. The US has to be more watchful of this or they might lose the market share.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 at 8:35 am and is filed under News and Media Blog, Internet Blog, Business Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.