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Want 12Mbits/sec for $21? Move to Japan.

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the first-citiwide-change-bank dept.

gbjbaanb writes "Softbank, in Japan, has built a gigabit ethernet network to replace DSL over ATM, which costs peanuts to maintain and run. For $21 a month, Japanese users get 12Mb/sec, free VoIP (without quality loss) calls to users on the same network, (3c/min to New York), and DVD-quality movies. The company needs users to stay with the service for 15 months to break even, given that it is giving modems away for free."

32 of 594 comments (clear)

  1. Serious Question by Raul654 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Given that info, I'd be more than willing to sign up for the requisite 15+ months. So why can't they do something like that here in the States? What's holding them back - red tape, technical issues?

    --


    To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
    --E.C. Stanton
    1. Re:Serious Question by wren337 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Existing infrastructure, profit margins, lack of competition...

    2. Re:Serious Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Installing such a network in america would be much longer, and a lot more expensive. You saw the size of Japan (you know where it is on the map right?) Installing a network in there takes much less time and much less wire. I don't even think Bill Gates have enough money to install that network in half of the US.

      Only hope for them that the servers will hold the bandwith and not crash within seconds.

    3. Re:Serious Question by Flabby+Boohoo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Read Cringley's column, he sums it all up quite nicely.

      Bottom line is that the baby bells don't want to spend the money. And they don't want to share.

    4. Re:Serious Question by carlmenezes · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think it's a combination of a lot of factors:

      1) The Japanese are a people that seem to have an affinity for the latest gadgets and technology which is the reason a lot of really cool things show up first in Japan. Not sure if you can say the same about the average American.

      2) I don't know how it works in Japan, but over here in the States, it seems that corporations are really out to milk the customer for all the green they can get. So I don't think it's not possible over here. I just think that instead of giving you 12Mb/Sec, they'd start off with maybe 10 for the first few months, then chop bandwidth based on average usage and drive the price up while all the time telling you they're actually making things better - basically what's already happening to broadband.

      3) Also, if there was something like that over here, they would price it according to value. Let's face it : if people are willing to shell out approx $45 a month for cable/DSL, what would they pay for something like this? Answer : probably $100+ per month. Consequence : Nobody really buys it since the majority are not very tech oriented and really wouldn't see any justification to it.

      4) Finally, you wanna bet whether the MPAA is going to sit idly by when something like this is going on? They'll probably turn the whole thing into some really expensive form of "PPV over IP" (pay per view over iP).

      At the end of it all, look at the final price and ask yourself if you'd still go for it. And there you'd have the reason why it wouldn't work over here. If you boil it down to the basics, it's nothing but corporate greed.

      --
      Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
    5. Re:Serious Question by superdan2k · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This may have been modded as Funny, and probably repeatedly so, but it's also very insightful. Certain things become more functional in an "overcrowded" situation -- things like structured high-bandwidth communications systems.

      It's also fun to watch people being herded into the subways in Tokyo at rush hour. Provided you're not claustrophobic, that is.

      --
      blog |
    6. Re:Serious Question by mechaZardoz · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Not surprising, really; after all of the rampant overspending on infrastructure in the US during the dot-com era, the existing big players are probably unwilling to pony up the money.

      What they really need to do is make more efficient use of their existing networks.

    7. Re:Serious Question by KrispyKringle · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Actually, the monopolies exist on cable but not on telephone lines. The laws in regards to telephone lines, as I understand it, actually require the line owners to share the lines with other companies--originally with the purpose of enhancing telephone network inter-call-ability. Since these laws apply to DSL providors and the like, you can get, say, Earthlink DSL through Verizon lines.

      In comparison, the cable TV companies were granted regional monopolies, which still apply to cable ISPs, so there is very little competition in that arena. Which is why DSL is more socially responsible than cable.

    8. Re:Serious Question by Muerto · · Score: 2, Interesting

      you can't call them baby bells anymore. they are no longer baby... they are massive.. sbc is so huge, and no one can accuse them of monopoly... because they are a "baby bell"

    9. Re:Serious Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
      Population density... people always bring that up. Then explain why in most places DSL is capped at 512k or some other low speed? The wires are already there, they are already being used, the equipment that is currently in use could go up to 8 megabits. But no, 512k is what you are allowed to get. And it costs more than 21 dollars. And if you are really unlucky, you're only allowed to transfer x GB per month.

      How does population density explain that?

    10. Re:Serious Question by Okonomiyaki · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Japan is crowded but not overcrowded. I lived in Tokyo for a year and I can say the benefits absolutely outweigh the drawbacks. Transportation, communications, entertainment, it's all better there than here (Seattle, USA). Sure, living space is limited but when you have so much great stuff outside your door, you stop caring how little you have inside it.

    11. Re:Serious Question by hackstraw · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I tried to go with another phone provider besides Verizon in my area, and Verizon (after a long delay) politely told the small phone company that the "port could not be opened".

      So, I went w/o a phone for a few _months_ and finally went crawling back to Verizon.

      Almost 2 years later, Cox Cable calls me and asks "Would you like to switch to our phone network and save $10 a month?" I said yes.

      I dunno where they learned math at Cox, but I've always thought that 26 == 26, where 26 is the number of dollars per month for my phone.

      Upon finding this out, I promptly cut my phone and cable from Cox.

      I realize that phones are much more expensive in other countries, but the system is pretty fucked here in the US. One perfect example: _all_ (land line) phone companies charge extra _every month_ for caller ID. All of us know that this is part of the phone infrastructure (both ends have to know who's connected to who) and costs the phone company $0, and they want me to pay for this? Same with all of the other "services" that are charged monthly.

      I don't understand how my isp bill for $15/month can get me anywhere in the world, but the phoneline that connects me less than 20 miles away costs almost 2x that. Something is not right.

    12. Re:Serious Question by petecarlson · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The laws in regards to telephone lines, as I understand it, actually require the line owners to share the lines with other companies--originally with the purpose of enhancing telephone network inter-call-ability. Since these laws apply to DSL providors and the like, you can get, say, Earthlink DSL through Verizon lines.

      There was a recent ruling that changed this. I don't have time to do the research on it right now, but here's an extract from Findlaw.com's analysys of The FCC'S UNE Triennial Review Order.

      Article here

      Line Sharing: Eliminated Over a Three-Year Period

      The FCC eliminated line sharing as a UNE, to be phased out over a three-year period. Competing firms will only be entitled to acquire new customers during the first year and, during the three-year period, the price for the high frequency portion of the loop will increase incrementally towards the market cost of a full loop.

      Competitive DSL services will be hit hard by this finding. The Commission apparently is betting on "intermodal" competition to prevent rate increases caused by its decision to eliminate DSL competition. For these competitors, a close reading of the language of the final order will be imperative to ascertain whether there is any basis for overturning this aspect of the decision.

    13. Re:Serious Question by bb_referee · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The "last mile" is really a hamper. Sure, lots of fiber was installed in the dot-com boom, but there's no money now to make it live. Until we see fiber to the curb (FTTC) similar to the ION project that Sprint rolled out in Las Vegas, the speeds will be slower for DSL. I used to work for Sprint, before ION, and I've seen lots of "last mile" wire. You've got wire out there that's not even twisted pair running from a home to the C.O. And in core neighborhoods in larger cities, lots of the "last mile" is overhead, not buried, which presents a whole host of other problems.

      FTTC is the answer, but the telcos are not interested in investing in infrastructure right now. In areas where the telcos buried the fiber, they aren't interested in spending the money to make it live...it'll remain dark for a few years, I'd bet.

      PS: I've heard some really bad things about Sprint's ION service...I didn't use it as an example of the type of service, only as an example of FTTC. Having worked for Sprint, I know how bad of a company it really is...

      --
      "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
    14. Re:Serious Question by jez9999 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      How exactly do they grow enough food for people to eat in Japan? With that kind of population density and space at a premium, it must be difficult. Does Japan have to import much food to keep its people fed?

      --
      == Jez ==
      Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
    15. Re:Serious Question by d2ksla · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Look at how densely packed Japan is. Look at the huge expanses of empty land in the states.

      Sweden is the size of California, but has only a quarter (9 million) of the population. Yet the broadband prices are similar to Japan ($40/mo for 26/26 Mbit/s).

      --

      Freevo - Linux Multimedia Jukebox
    16. Re:Serious Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      All of us know that [Caller ID] is part of the phone infrastructure (both ends have to know who's connected to who)

      Well, no. A phone call goes through many links in a chain. And none of those links need to know (or typically do know) more than which input port gets connected to which output port. The box closest to you gets told (for example) "I have a call for your line #17 coming in on DS0 3 of DS1 #12; make the connection". The box says "One ringie-dingie; two ringie dingies; Done". There's nothing in there about anyone's name, or the directory number (DN) of the originating end. The signalling (SS7) to arrange a path happens on a completely separate network, and the SS7 nodes aren't connected to your phone. The boxes on the immediate other end of the phone lines typically don't have knowledge or understanding of DNs at all.

      and costs the phone company $0

      Well, no. Caller ID typically is (or was, back when it was getting started) an extra feature in the switch software that the network operator has to pay extra money for. You can run your DMS 500 / 5ESS, or you can pay a few million extra and run them with the Caller ID option.

      Also, the line card has to support some extra hardware. It needs a modem built into it to burst that Caller ID data between the first and second ring. Lines that don't support Caller ID don't need the modem, which includes lots of old lines cards, and cheap line cards. The POTS business is really cutthroat when it comes to cost-per-line (it's a commodity), and even a buck for a chip matters.

      Then, of course, there's the simple matter that phone service with Caller ID is more attractive to some people than phone service without, and therefore it can be sold for more money. Prices are not always determined by cost + x%. Often enough, they're determined by the value to the buyer ("whatever the market will bear") and not the cost to the seller. Those are simply the maximum and minimum prices can have. When the two values are different, the actual market price can be anywhere in between.

    17. Re:Serious Question by Destron · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's not really what keeps them afloat. Japan imports a huge amount of food from other countries, and it is not as crowded as everyone thinks. Japan is about the same size as California, although with less arable land, and four times the population. Yet, they make far more rice than they can eat here and a huge portion of it goes to waste. The goverment is paying farmers NOT to produce food. Now consider that their population is declining. It's not exactly overcrowded. What IS overcrowded is Tokyo. The population of the countryside continues to decrease while Tokyo increases. People live in tiny apartments. An apartment complex (danchi) means 30 buildings, 10 stories each, 10 units on each story and a family in each 4 room unit. Seems easy enough to wire up to me.

  2. Tsk tsk tsk.. Amateurs :) by rylin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Want 26Mbps for $48.65 (USD)? (xe.com/ucc)
    Move to sweden.

    Bostream.se (Bostream "scream" product page)

  3. Thanks, Softbank! by nacturation · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Now, thanks to thousands of vulnerable Windows boxes, I now have a combined total of 1644Mbps of bandwidth to DDoS sites with.

    On a more serious note, the cool factor of this is outstanding, but I sure hope they're handing out firewall software when they hand out those free modems on the street.

    --
    Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
    1. Re:Thanks, Softbank! by OmniVector · · Score: 2, Interesting

      HOPEFULLY? This has always been one of the things that pissed me off about my cable internet provider. Not only does my service get slower due to incremental caps of bandwidth, but they don't drop the price, or have any future intent of improving the service.

      I mean why should they bother? It's not like I can get up and switch to a faster service that costs the same or less.

      --
      - tristan
  4. Sign me up... by SealBeater · · Score: 2, Interesting

    nuf said. Tho I would love to see what they "allow" users to do with all that nice bandwidth.

    SealBeater

    --
    -- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
  5. No, really by sunilhari · · Score: 2, Interesting
    How can I invest in this guy's company? Seriously, the guy is obviously so far ahead of the curve that getting in now (while he's in debt) will make me a wealthy man. Because he's investing in hardware and not software, his idea might actually work.

    This doesn't seem like another webvan, but what the hell do I know?

  6. 2 years ago by presroi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    heise.de

    08/01/2001:
    NTT to install 100 Mbit lines in the living room

    So, this is not really new news. Besids the fee.

    There must have been a /.-Story as well

    German headline follows:

    NTT legt 100-MBit-Leitungen bis ins Wohnzimmer

    NTT will heute einen Glasfaser-Breitbanddienst starten, der Übertragungsraten von bis zu 100 MBit/s schaffen soll. Nach einem Bericht von EETimes will die japanische Telefongesellschaft diesen Service den Endkunden für einen Grundpreis von deutlich unter 200 Mark pro Monat anbieten.

  7. Far reaching implications? by noelp · · Score: 3, Interesting
    This sounds great. If I lived in Japan, I would be signing up asap.

    However, I kind of feel this is just another step along a somewhat dangerous (maybe that is too strong a word, but bear with me) path.

    The internet, as it was envisaged, is designed to be a system whereby a large chunk of it can get destroyed/removed and data can still flow around that gap. Packets take all sorts of routes to get from A to B. All very good stuff, and something I am sure everyone is more than familiar with.

    So, a disaster of some description happens, and we can all still get most of what we want as a result of this clever system. But with increases in bandwith such as this, more and more content (some trivial, other very not so) is pushed to the edge of the network. One ISP goes awry now and a huge number of sites/content/services can just dissapear. These sites do not have multiple backbone connections etc etc. With bandwith such as discussed here, you can host a site for a pretty decent number of users. (Wont take much of a slashdotting...but never mind...)

    If people continue to push/provide content and services from the very edge of the network, then the very point of this network seems to be defeated. There is a lot of crap out there which I would not miss, but there is also a lot of stuff out there that I would. God bless the google cache is all I can say.

    Thoughts?

    --
    'Internet! Is that thing still around?' - Homer Simpson
  8. Re:12? Pshaw! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Yepp, Sweden is *the* broadband country..

    I've had 10 Mbps in both directions for only $30/month for over 2 years now.. And it's not ADSL or VSDL. It's simply a RJ45 outlet in my wall.

    http://www.bredbandsbolaget.com

  9. Re:The rest of the story by leeet · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Softbank is the Microsoft of Japan. They own software, hardware, game and publishing companies (amost others). They have capital and invest in USA and Europe. This Internet setup is probably just to amuse the president's daughter.

    --
    -- Leeeter than leet
  10. If they're using NTT Copper by BigBadBri · · Score: 1, Interesting
    why are they promoting VOIP that will undercut NTT's core operations?

    Is it a sensible strategy to undermine your supplier?

    Is it a deliberate strategy, with the aim of picking up the infrastructure on the cheap?

    Personally, I can't help thinking that they are shooting themselves in the foot - their VOIP offering appears purely parasitic to me.

    --
    oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
  11. it will last? by tomstdenis · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When cable modems were new in north america they weren't as slow as they are now. They promised break-neck speeds that would boggle your mind. Now they give speeds that nearly rival dailup modems [well kidding but you know what I mean].

    Funny thing that.

    Hmm :-)

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
  12. Don't believe everything you read. by shimpei · · Score: 2, Interesting
    For a more sobering data, check out the this graph of speed vs. distance to NTT station on Yahoo BB's web site. (It's in Japanese, but you should be able to read enough of the graph to get the gist of it.)

    As you can see, you basically need to live next door to your local NTT station in order to get 12Mb/s. Living 2km away (not unlikely, even in allegedly densely packed Tokyo) gives you maybe half that. Even the new 26Mb/s service doesn't give you 12Mb/s at 2km.

  13. OK, here's the scoop on Yahoo! BB by gpvillamil · · Score: 5, Interesting

    OK, I work in the telecoms field in Japan, and I know the Yahoo! BB infrastructure well. I asked them directly why they can offer 10x the speed at 1/2 the price, and this is the answer.

    1) Different DSL encoding standard: they use a set of standards called Annex A, Annex C and Annex H to provide fast DSL over copper. (Incidentally, many of the DSL providers in Japan also provide 8 and 12 mbps service - this is a Japan specific point). Yahoo! BB IS a DSL service.

    2) Low-cost all IP network: the back-end network is basically a single gigantic Layer 2 gigabit Ethernet LAN. There is no ATM, SONET, etc. any of that stuff. It all runs as IP over Ethernet. The network architecture is actually quite radical. Fiber links are rented from a variety of sources, at dirt cheap prices.

    3) Regulatory support and low prices for access: the telecoms regulator, in a fit of pique, forced NTT (local telco) to offer access to the copper lines for less than $2 - dramatically lower than in other markets.

    4) Extremely low cost operating model: customer support is only available via e-mail or web. You install your own equipment. (Incidentally, there are frequent complaints about Yahoo! cust serv, so they finally had to open a call center)

    The offering is extremely clever. The DSL modem has an analog phone jack in the back into which you plug your existing phone, fax machine, etc. You continue to receive calls over your analog line, so your phone number does not change. Outgoing calls are checked by the DSL modem and routed over VoIP if that is cheaper. If the DSL modem fails, the analog port simply connnects straight through to the existing analog line.

    There is no technical or geographical reason why the Yahoo! BB model can't be implemented in other places. They are using copper lines from the incumbent for last mile access, and a published standard. The real barrier is probably that in other markets the telcos are trying to squeeze more return out of outdated, expensive networks. They don't want to build out a back-end for 10x the current traffic using their existing high cost network model.

  14. 100 megabits is only $40 in Japan too by greggman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    http://www.usen.com

    Other companies provide 100 megabit service for slightly more like NTT at around $55 a month.

    A bigger concern, as an American, is that the U.S. is going to go down in flames in the near future because Japan and Korea are both wired to the max. There entire societies are changing because of ubiquitous access to FAST internet. That means Japan and Korea will end up leading the world in innovative net apps and hardware since they are the ones living in a wired world, not the U.S. The U.S. needs to get off it's ass and get us wired!