Later today sometime we will be getting our current 1.5Mbps ADSL internet service upgraded to 12Mbps. It’s supposed to be a flip of the switch kind of thing (I’ve already changed the modem), but I’m not holding my breath. When we first got DSL last April, NTT‘s software (which was really Efficient Networks’ EnterNet software in an NTT wrapper) refused to work with my computer, and knowing there was no way I was going to be able to talk with our provider’s tech support, let alone have Naoko talk to them, I spent 5 frustrating hours fooling with the thing until I finally was able to find the freeware RASPPPOE software, which has since been performing like a champ all these months. So, if I’m not around for a while, you’ll know why.
Along with a few other things, count DSL in Japan as one of those consumer items which is not only affordable, but downright cheap. In fact, if you have a 56K dial-up connection in Japan, you pay more. Currently, we pay ¥3,250 ($27) per month, which breaks down as ¥2,340 to NTT, ¥490 to our ISP (this will soon be going up to ¥850 once a special campaign ends), and ¥420 for renting the modem (also to NTT). And how much will we pay for the new upgraded service, which in theory would be giving us download speeds 8 times as fast as we get now? A mere ¥90 more per month. (Of course, as anyone familiar with DSL knows, we won’t be getting anywhere near the 12Mbps speed we’re paying for, but it will be an improvement over what we’re getting now and for only ¥90 more, one would have to be a fool not to do it.)
A recent article in BusinessWeek, Eating Asia’s Broadband Dust, looks at how fast the broadband market is taking off in Asia, compared to the US, where growth in high-speed Net access is lagging. Currently, around 300,000 new customers a month are signing up for DSL service in Japan, with total subscribership now past 5 million, and possibly reaching 12 million by 2004. Compare that to the U.S., where DSL has been a mature product for a lot longer, which only has around 6 million DSL subscribers at this point (with double the population of Japan, mind you).
Price certainly has a lot to do with the proliferation of broadband access here in Japan. An interesting article by tech pundit Robert X. Cringely from last May, How Softbank is Betting Everything on Bringing Broadband to Japan, explores the role that Softbank has played in Japan’s DSL explosion, and its cheap broadband rates (some of the cheapest in the developed world). Softbank itself recently announced it had surpassed the 1 million subscriber mark for it’s Yahoo!BB DSL service, even as it continues to sell off its shares of Yahoo!.
Right now I have a client who’s dial-up ISP is going out of business, so she asked me if I could recommend another dial-up provider. “There’s a good reason your ISP is going under,” I started, but I couldn’t sell her on broadband. She spends about an hour a week online, mostly for email. She found another ISP.
I’ve been using YahooBB since it became available in my area in November 2001, ¥2880/mo. + ¥500 DSL router rental. That’s it, no NTT fee because the govt forced NTT to lease lines directly to Yahoo. Anything that puts the fire to the feet of NTT is OK with me.
This is the 8Megabit service, however, using the existing copper telephone lines, I don’t think there’s any difference from 1.5Megabit. DSL Reports sez:
Your download speed : 1259080 bps, or 1259 kbps.
A 153.6 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 564652 bps, or 564 kbps.
Seems like broadband .. above the 1mbit barrier!
Something for you to compare with. We’ve been very satisfied.
Nils-
thanks for commenting, and for giving me your dsl data to compare ours with, although I’m sad to say it looks like your 8m connection is leaving my 12M connection in the dust!
From dslreports.com, this is what I get:
Your download speed : 928242 bps, or 928 kbps
A 113.3 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 535475 bps, or 535 kbps
Interesting that my upload speed is almost where your’s is at, but the download is some 300 kbps less (I guess I should be happy, given how many photos I upload!). A lot of it of course depends on where one’s residence is and how close it is to the what, I’m not sure (in the states we’d say “Central Office”, but I’m not sure exactly where we’re getting this service from!).