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NTT To Send Movies, Games Via Fiber-Optic Network
acehole writes: "Sony Corp and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) will join forces to provide movies, games and other products to households via a fiber-optic network and Sony's video game console PlayStation2. Sony hopes to use the service around the country (Japan) in full service by around 2001. A small story about it can be read here." From the article, it's unclear how deep in the network the fiber goes; anyone have more information on that? I'd like some fiber to my apartment, but it's rather far from Japan right now ...
Sorry, I posted without reviewing. (Should have pressed preview)
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Being citizen of Japan, every time I hear these stories, I need to sigh.
Japanese government and its ex-government owned monopoly (NTT) has been talking about "Fiber to home" sh-t for more than 5 years. That was an excuse not to implement any DSL or cheap ISDN service,
Korea has very good high speed Internet access while Japan has some ISDN but still practically no real high-speed access. It happened because of government incompetence.
Both country shares similar urban STRUCTURE and there should be no excuse by NTT.
They can talk any bulls--t and make story for digital contents (Which I did not bother to read) but I am very skeptical about it.
Some facts.
In Japan, Local call costs about $9/3 min from home phone, $9/min. from public phone. Getting new line installed, expect to shell out $1000 and wait for 4 weeks. Unlimited nighttime discount call option costs $50/month. Dou you get picture how NTT being so rich. MONOPOLY.
So much for my rant.
> From the article, it's unclear how deep in the network the fiber goes; anyone have more information on that? I'd like some fiber to my apartment, but it's rather far from Japan right now ...
I live in a medium-sized (900,000 people) urban centre in central Japan and I have about as much hope of getting fiber to my door in the next ten years as I had getting Internet access in 1990. Which is nil. You'll get your fiber long before I do!
The article is only talking about a pilot project in an urban centre. That probably means less than 10,000 subscribers in Tokyo and Osaka with the rest of the nation being rolled out about the year 3085.
Basically, Internet access sucks in this country--both in price and in lack of bandwidth. And fiber just isn't going to happen any time soon!
True, NTT has one of the most advanced ISDN infrastructures in the world. Hell, I can walk up to almost any payphone--even in between two rice paddies--and "plug in".
But ISDN is part of the problem. NTT has invested giga-yen into it and they will do their damnedest to milk it for all the revenue they can--including delaying offering new services that would make ISDN obsolete.
You can get 128K ISDN dial-up connections to your ISP from anywhere in Japan but if you want a 24-hour connection (that avoids the 3.3 yen/min toll charges on local calls) you have to sign up for OCN Economy. The name is ironic: They charge 32,000 yen (US$298 ) per month for it. At least they throw in 8 IP addresses.
Never mind fiber, when they roll out ADSL they are only going to be able to charge about 4500 yen, eroding their ISDN revenue base and pissing off a lot of corporate customers who signed long-term (3 year) contracts for OCN Economy. Watch: Before ADSL goes nation-wide, NTT will at least half the price of OCN Economy.
NTT introduced another pilot in November 1999: a flat-rate ISDN service for 8000 yen per month. This one, aimed at non-corperate users, doesn't include the cost of your ISP and I'm not even sure if it has a static IP address. In May they expanded it to cover several more wards of Tokyo and also Osaka City but this service is still a pilot (30,000 subscribers) and not outside of the two urban centres. Walk into a local NTT in my city and ask about this or ADSL and they hand you a pamphlet for OCN Economy saying that it is the lowest priced service they offer.
Similar pilots are underway with ADSL with plans to roll out nation wide in less than a year, but I've been hearing these kinds of announcements for years. I've learned not to get my hopes up.
Looking on the bright side, even if I can't get ADSL before 2002, when NTT lowers it's prices on OCN Economy this year, I will at least be able to get it for less than I am paying now in dial-up charges: My current NTT local-call toll charges to my ISP are between 15,000 to 25,000 yen a month!
On another front, I was supposed to get cable Internet access a year ago. I went to my local cable company the other day to get a status report. They said my area was pushed back--slated for 2002. They didn't seem to think there was any need to hurry, the high cost of upgrading their equipment being the main excuse for the delay. I talked directly to one of their technical staff and explained to them how ADSL was going to beat them to the market. They hadn't even heard of ADSL! I got the impression that they simply don't understand the concept of competition, having been granted a monopoly on CATV services for their region. Anyway, they charge about 80,000 yen for installation.
So what about fiber? NTT is talking about offering their "Medium/High-Speed IP Service" this year, in areas where they already have FTTH (fiber to the home). So what homes already have fiber? Not many even in Tokyo. And a year ago NTT's projection on a nation-wide network of fiber feeder cables was 2010.
I say "Dream on...!".