The NYT Compares Broadband Upgrade Costs in US, Japan

zxjio writes with this excerpt from a New York Times article about just how much networking infrastructure costs vary between the US and Japan: "Pretty much the fastest consumer broadband in the world is the 160-megabit-per-second service offered by J:Com, the largest cable company in Japan. Here's how much the company had to invest to upgrade its network to provide that speed: $20 per home passed. ... Verizon is spending an average of $817 per home passed to wire neighborhoods for its FiOS fiber optic network and another $716 for equipment and labor in each home that subscribes, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. ... The experience in Japan suggests that the major cable systems in the United States might be able to increase the speed of their broadband service by five to 10 times right away. They might not need to charge much more for it than they do now and they would still make as much money."

Comments

Crazy

[Caustic Soda]

That's just...ridiculous. No wonder they have such enormous speeds compared to the US. At least the States get a decent speed though. Here in Australia you tend to pay through the nose for anything more than 1Mb/s

Re:Crazy

[AI0867]

Actually, they measure it in meters or centimeters, but your point still stands.
This makes me wonder why the speeds in the Netherlands don't go much over 20mbps, as we actually have a higher population density than Japan.

Re:High density = no digging

[Fusen]

Oh I forgot to add, the 50Mbit being offered is purely down to this being their first push into using DOCSIS 3, the company has been quoted as saying once they make sure their network is working properly and more areas are supported, in a year or less they'll start offering 80Mbit and upwards to 120Mbit. All still based on the hardware the current 50Mbit subscribers use and all still not requiring any digging.

Re:Journalism meets Technology ...

[v1]

What I wonder is, are companies like Cox pulling maneuvers similar to "Hollywood Accounting" to make their end costs really high, which would appear to justify jacking everyone's rates up, but under the table they're paying themselves off (via their affiliate or otherwise owned companies) and turning an insane profit in the big picture?

Re:I want Fios

[aurispector]

I talked to the guy stringing it up on our street last spring but I couldn't get anyone at Verizon to tell me when it would be ready to go. Once they did start marketing, the prices were unreasonable. If they made it cheaper than Comcast everyone everywhere would be onboard. Instead they're busy trying to gouge - giving Comcast time to roll out Docsys 3.0. They had a narrow window of time to beat the pants off Comcast and they missed it. Of course Comcast might have dropped prices to actually *compete*, but price competition is the LAST item on the list of things american telcos are willing to do for market share.