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NTT, Japan's Largest Fixed Telecom Provider, Begins Phasing Out ADSL

Posted by timothy on from the to-everything-a-season dept.

AmiMoJo writes: Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), the third largest telecoms provider in the world, is beginning to phase out ADSL for broadband internet access (Google Translate helps). NTT is no longer accepting new registrations, and no longer manufacturing the equipment required. Instead they recommend users opt for their FLET'S HIKARI fibre optic service. Their "Giga Mansion Smart Type" services offers 1Gb/sec for around $40/month.

135 comments

  1. 1Gb/sec for around $40/month. by invictusvoyd · · Score: 2

    Is there a data cap ?

    1. Re:1Gb/sec for around $40/month. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No. All tentacle and schoolgirl porn you can eat.

    2. Re:1Gb/sec for around $40/month. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. 1GB. It takes approximately 8 seconds to reach the cap.

    3. Re:1Gb/sec for around $40/month. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No data cap, but if I'm reading this correctly, there are other conditions.
      - a 2 year contract with early termination fee.
      - the $41/month includes a minimum $4/mo (500JPY) ISP charge. The ISP is charged separately from NTT, which only provides the pipe. I suspect the low-priced ISP service might include a data cap, or be limited to less than 1Gb/S during most of the day.
      - An installation fee of 18000 JPY (just 145 US) paid over 2.5 years
      - Cable modem rental charge, though I presume you can bring your own.

      All in all, it seems very reasonable, but note that the strong dollar makes a difference: This package would be $50 at last August's exchange rates.

    4. Re: 1Gb/sec for around $40/month. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      for the non business plans there is a cap of 25GB upload per day, which if you exceed regularly they will send you a nasty letter. there is no download cap. mansion type means you share a single 1Gb connection with the neighbors in your apartment. For your own dedicated line, it is around $60. You can pick another isp though if you want a cheaper plan.

    5. Re:1Gb/sec for around $40/month. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No data cap, but if I'm reading this correctly, there are other conditions.
      - a 2 year contract with early termination fee.
      - the $41/month includes a minimum $4/mo (500JPY) ISP charge. The ISP is charged separately from NTT, which only provides the pipe. I suspect the low-priced ISP service might include a data cap, or be limited to less than 1Gb/S during most of the day.
      - An installation fee of 18000 JPY (just 145 US) paid over 2.5 years
      - Cable modem rental charge, though I presume you can bring your own.

      All in all, it seems very reasonable, but note that the strong dollar makes a difference: This package would be $50 at last August's exchange rates.

      Goddamn it, I pay 50$ per month for a shitty 12 Mbit ADSL connection. No data caps though.
      I hate living in a first world country that for all intents and purposes is actually a third world one.
      A 1Gb/s residential connection ? Ha never in my lifetime.

    6. Re:1Gb/sec for around $40/month. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      I couldn't see a cap mentioned anywhere. Most Japanese ISPs don't bother with caps. NTT tried one about a decade ago when it was 100/100Mb service, IIRC 300GB/day. Didn't go over well, soon abandoned.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    7. Re:1Gb/sec for around $40/month. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But... I just want to watch it!

    8. Re:1Gb/sec for around $40/month. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most Japanese ISPs don't bother with caps.

      That's because there awesome. Japan is the most besterest evar at everythink!!!!!

    9. Re:1Gb/sec for around $40/month. by Chikungunya · · Score: 1

      Its exactly like this with some extra options when making the contracts in special sales (I got a second hand Washing machine).
      They do require you to install some useless things in your computer to use the service but at least has been problem free the whole time I have been using it.

    10. Re:1Gb/sec for around $40/month. by Pikoro · · Score: 1

      No. It's 1Gb up / 1Gb down (best effort). No data caps. It's left up to the ISP. NTT provides the pipe, then you have your choice of ISPs who compete on price. The fiber line runs around $40/mo and then you tack your ISP fees onto that but changing ISPs is as simple as updating the username/password in the modem. FLETS is an awesome system and I really wish they would do something like that in the USA. Let the government own the pipe and pay for it with taxes. Then let anyone start up their own ISP.

      --
      "Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
    11. Re:1Gb/sec for around $40/month. by Zanadou · · Score: 1

      Goddamn it, I pay 50$ per month for a shitty 12 Mbit ADSL connection. No data caps though.
      I hate living in a first world country that for all intents and purposes is actually a third world one.

      Australian Detected_

    12. Re:1Gb/sec for around $40/month. by MindlessGenius · · Score: 0

      I educated myself in the 90's in Fiber optics (O.T.D.R.) (Fusion Splicing / single/multi mode) etc... The expectation was that Fiber was then and would be in the future "THE" standard. However as in everything profitable in capitalist controlled societies they had to milk that cow in such a way as to minimize the deployment of such tech while pushing expensive slow evolving platforms that kept power and bandwidth out of the hands of consumers while feeding massive monopolies. Just watch them contort like snakes while they lobby against local government providing "Free" or low cost fiber or Gig Ethernet access to their constituents while they refuse to provide decent speed/bandwidth or even accessibility to same consumer zones... Oh, the Joys of Capitalism...

  2. ADSL is for luddites. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Modern Internet users connect using apps

  3. AT&T.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    is already doing this in the USA, so long as their Uverse is an option they will not sign you up for DSL.

    1. Re:AT&T.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      U-verse is just VDSL, except in areas where they haven't upgraded the local node yet, in which case it's ADSL2+.

      Also, if you're an existing DSL customer and they bring U-verse into your neighborhood, just upgrade. Your DSL will turn to shit if you don't. (Speaking from experience, here.)

    2. Re:AT&T.... by Osgeld · · Score: 3, Insightful

      and considering its not an option for 80% of the country they are glad to sign you up for 3mbs service for only 57.99 + taxes and fees making it damn near 100 bucks a month

      fuck the ISPs in the USA they all SUCK

    3. Re:AT&T.... by seven+of+five · · Score: 1

      Amen to that brother.... 6Mbps here for $40 a month AT&T... in the hardscrabble backwater called Chicago, I can't get FIOS, can't get the good U-verse... 4G, AT&T and Comcast is it :(

    4. Re:AT&T.... by Cimexus · · Score: 1

      Ah, but Uverse *IS* DSL - ADSL2+ or VDSL to be precise. In any other country it would be advertised as such, but US telcos seem to love to sell services with weird names in order to obfuscate what technology is actually being used to deliver them...

    5. Re:AT&T.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Got Charter here. 100Mbps for $60/month (well, actually $59.99, but I hate that stupid 9's game that marketers do, so I call it what it is). No fees, no taxes, no nags or pressure to upgrade beyond the weekly throw-aways via snail mail.

    6. Re:AT&T.... by Osgeld · · Score: 1

      I have crapcast its 69.99 a month. add in taxes and fees and its 96 a month bull

    7. Re:AT&T.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Paying $40/mo (before "fees") for 40 Mbit up and 5 mbit down. Large cable provider. Other than their initial difficulty in installing the hardware, I am satisfied with the deal.

      No bundling here because I really don't need/want anything they offer.

    8. Re:AT&T.... by allston · · Score: 0

      I have that same DSL plan here LA, in EAST LA with AT&T, but I only play $19.99 a month. The only other competition is Time Warner which is way to expensive. Plus I like not having to share my line with everyone else when they get home and fire up Netflix.

  4. America's not so behind after all! by Somebody+Is+Using+My · · Score: 4, Funny

    And they say America is falling behind when it comes to internet access. But Verizon is also phasing out DSL; getting a new DSL subscription these days is virtually impossible (speaking from experience, even if you just cancelled a month ago and want to resubscribe, suddenly it is "not available in your area"). In fact, Verizon is probably /ahead/ of the curve since they seem to be doing the same with FIOS. Oddly, they seem to be pushing Verizon wireless as the alternative instead of gigabit speeds but that's probably only because I haven't looked hard enough on their website, right?

    1. Re:America's not so behind after all! by Zocalo · · Score: 1
      Depending on which state you are in there might be a reason for that, and it's nothing to do with being on the cutting edge of broadband delivery; Verizon is apparently selling their landline business to Frontier Communications in 14 states. From the linked article:

      The deal includes Verizon's wireline assets in Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin as well as some assets in California.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    2. Re:America's not so behind after all! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I just want to see AT&T given broken into so many tiny little pieces that it can never ever reform again. Oh they are probably phasing out DSL as well, but then they never bothered even running even DSL to any place that would not net them a next quarter profit. They are the worst company I've ever had the misfortune to deal with and should not exist at all. What is worse is the useless piece of existence was given permission to gobble up a major satellite provider, so now they can twist their monopoly stance even further without any real effort on their part.

      This is not right. How can this be what America has come to that companies that consistently fail to serve the common good are allowed to grow larger and larger without any real restraint?

    3. Re:America's not so behind after all! by ashshy · · Score: 1

      That was in 2009. More recently, Frontier also bought Verizon's landline operations in Texas, Florida, and the rest of California. That deal is still pending. http://www.fool.com/investing/...

      --
      #o#
      O Moo.
    4. Re:America's not so behind after all! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How can this be what America has come to that companies that consistently fail to serve the common good are allowed to grow larger and larger without any real restraint?

      Step 1: give gifts to congressional staff
      Step 2: lobby congressvermin
      Step 3: give congressional staff script writing advice so congressvermin can talk about being anti-monopoly or whichever term polls well
      Step 4: make public statements about how horrible congressvermin's bill will be
      Step 5: laugh as news corporations don't bother to notice that the "Federal Child Safety Bill of 2015" has nothing to do with child safety and just bans any competition from forming in your field of industry
      Step 6: increase margins

    5. Re: America's not so behind after all! by nehumanuscrede · · Score: 1

      I assure you, AT&T is right behind them. They did a trial run up in the SNET region maybe a year or so ago to determine the process and identify problem areas.

    6. Re: America's not so behind after all! by nehumanuscrede · · Score: 1

      I don't think 'Murica was the target for the DirecTV acquisition. Included, yes, but not sure about the primary target.

      We have that neighboring country to the South you see. . . . .

    7. Re:America's not so behind after all! by Zocalo · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the clarification - I'm actually in Europe, but read something about it on a mailing list and seeing OP mention Verizon jogged my memory. Makes sense if OP is in one of the areas impacted by the pending deal that they'd be trying to upsell their wireless biz and downplay their hopefully soon to be unloaded fixed line assets though. No point signing up new customers only to hand them off to Frontier if you can convince them that they'd be better off with the wireless service and hopefully keep them around to be milked

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    8. Re:America's not so behind after all! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You seem to misunderstand the United States. Don't worry, most Americans do. The US is incredibly broad and diverse. Your experience with Verizon has nothing to do with someone in Kansas who can barely get 3 megabit internet access.

      I assure you that in most of the country DSL is alive and well and FIOS service is a pipe dream.

    9. Re:America's not so behind after all! by nospam007 · · Score: 1

      "Thanks for the clarification - I'm actually in Europe, but read something about it on a mailing list ..."

      A mailing list? How old are you, gramps?

    10. Re:America's not so behind after all! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      woooosh

    11. Re:America's not so behind after all! by Binestar · · Score: 1

      A mailing list? How old are you, gramps?

      Judging by his Slashdot User Number, about 3 times older than you.

      --
      Do you Gentoo!?
    12. Re:America's not so behind after all! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But Verizon is also phasing out DSL; getting a new DSL subscription these days is virtually impossible (speaking from experience, even if you just cancelled a month ago and want to resubscribe, suddenly it is "not available in your area").

      Apparently they may not even be lying to you when they tell you that. Your area probably really is at 100% capacity and rather than increase capacity (that costs money, after all), they just tell you that it's not available. So when you canceled, someone else grabbed your slot, and now service is not available in your area - any more, because they're at capacity.

      Depending on the costs of increasing capacity and maintenance, it may even make economic sense to just accept that you're going to fuck over a certain percentage of the population who you just won't bother serving because it simply isn't worth the cost of doing so. It's the price we pay for living in a free society.

      By which I mean it is, of course, illegal for anyone else to come in and try and serve the customers Verizon has decided aren't worth the expense in serving. The state of Internet access in the US is partly the fault of the telecoms but the government deserves blame as well for ensuring that the free market has no say in Internet access by guarantee telecom monopolies for certain areas.

    13. Re:America's not so behind after all! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BS unless you live in select areas. Most places will never see FIOS.

  5. BT is doing the opposite of this in the UK by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 4, Informative

    As of a couple of months ago at least, BT will refuse to sell you fibre to the premises if you have access to ADSL.

    My flat is literally 40 feet away from a fibre and even Ethernet enabled street box, and I can't get fibre.

    --

    -WolfWithoutAClause

    "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
    1. Re:BT is doing the opposite of this in the UK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's because B Land (wherever that is) isn't as awesome as Japan.

    2. Re:BT is doing the opposite of this in the UK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While I'm sure something happened when you talked to BT, it's not that BT have any kind of policy of refusing to sell fiber service to people who are capable of receiving fiber service. There's obviously more to this than you're saying. The word "flat" offers some hints, perhaps, since OpenReach won't replace the wiring inside the building, it being the responsibility of the building owner.

      Anyway, BT are not the only reseller of OpenReach FTTC, they're just the most expensive one (by far). You can try Sky, PlusNet, etc. etc.

    3. Re:BT is doing the opposite of this in the UK by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      He said they would refuse him fiber to the premisis not fiber to the cabinet.

      BT won't sell you FTTPoD (fiber to the premisis on demand) if you live in a flat. Probablly because of the internal wiring complications you mention.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    4. Re:BT is doing the opposite of this in the UK by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      The only time (other than due to capacity issues) BT will insist on ADSL over fibre is when there isn't an up to date survey for your property - such as in the case of a brand new building.

      I had to place an order for a phone line and ADSL with my ISP and wait for it to be activated before the survey (done during the process) was updated on the Open Reach database and fibre suddenly became available. My ISP was fine about upgrading my internet from ADSL to fibre just a week into my 12 month ADSL contract with no charges.

      ADSL is always offered because its pretty much ubiquitous these days - you have to be fairly way out in the sticks for it not to apply, so if you are in a postcode region which offers ADSL then ISPs can offer it without an up to date survey. Fibre however requires an up to date survey - insist your ISP request one to be done if you think you should have access to fibre.

    5. Re:BT is doing the opposite of this in the UK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So he's complaining that he can't get a restricted pilot service that requires laying new fiber (at a cost of around £1K) and whose restrictions clearly state no apartment blocks or multiple-occupancy business units? I'm not sure he is, you know. Apart from the unlikelihood of anyone in a flat forking out that kind of money for internet, if he was talking about FTTPoD then his other option would be FTTC, not ADSL, since FTTC support is a basic requirement for FTTPoD.

      Either way, he's not being entirely upfront about the situation.

    6. Re:BT is doing the opposite of this in the UK by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      BT's goal is to milk their existing copper network as much as possible before being forced to upgrade it by the government. There is very little competition, and in many areas none at all. Zero incentive to upgrade the network if they can force you to simply pay the same amount for a shitty copper line and ADSL.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    7. Re:BT is doing the opposite of this in the UK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The same with me. There is fibre in the ground, but it belongs to a Dutch company. I live in Belgium. The street is the actual border, arbitrarily chosen in London in 1839, we live in the same village but it was split between Belgium and Netherlands. The Dutch fibre lays in Belgian ground, because it was easier to put it in the ground on the Belgian side since Belgians were allowed to have a wider sidewalk than our Dutch neighbors. That is no problem because we live in the EU and Benelux ... open economic borders!
       
        But I can't get access to the fibre cable that is just 5 meters from my house, because it is Dutch. That is a problem, because we live in the EU where phone markets are still national monopolies, although privatized with some competition so the profits still go to the 'right' pockets. Luckily the phone/internet/mobile market will opened in the beginning of 2015 ... but some asshole as vetoed the decision because of ... profits!

    8. Re:BT is doing the opposite of this in the UK by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 1

      Really? As in real fibre, not BTInfinity, which is still just ADSL over the significantly shorter distance to the cabinet in the road???

      I mean, sure they'll upgrade you to ADSL to the cabinet, no problem, which they call 'fibre', but it's really still ADSL going into your property as opposed to fibre where they actually have a real fibre entering your property.

      Real fibre is several hundred megabits or more, whereas BTInfinity caps out at ~75 Mbps, more normally you'll actually get ~55 Mbps.

      --

      -WolfWithoutAClause

      "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
    9. Re:BT is doing the opposite of this in the UK by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and you can't get it to a block of flats why exactly????

      One word: monopoly.

      Don't forget blocks of flats can actually use fibre; they can connect the flats with Ethernet quite easily; because the flats are close together, and they can reduce the infrastructure costs when doing that.

      Otherwise you have lots of ADSL's with boxes, each individually powered, at each end of each wire, wasting energy, with BT charging a standing charge on each one, and the line is going at 1/10 the speed.

      Anyway, there's was a 'stop sell' even on non blocks of flats at least until July, I haven't checked in the last few weeks, they may well have renewed it.

      --

      -WolfWithoutAClause

      "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
    10. Re:BT is doing the opposite of this in the UK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, eventually we get to the actual "problem". FTTPoD, which is a product where BT digs up the road and runs fibre to your home, is not available due to shortage of manpower.

      BT has, as you may have noticed, agreed to run hundreds of miles of fibre all over the country for its FTTC contracts. So given the choice between Bob the Fibre Engineer spending next Tuesday giving WolfWithoutAClause his FTTPoD versus hooking up Little Spoonbash-on-the-hill with 400 residents, they decided Bob should always do the latter, which means there was no point letting you order a product nobody would be available to fulfil for the foreseeable future.

      Given that your home is so close, I presume you get FTTC already, so when you said you have "access to ADSL" you're sort of sidestepping the point. Yes, you _could_ order ADSL but most likely since you apparently wanted FTTPoD you would use the VDSL aka FTTC product.

      So that's the difference between a 20Mbit product (on a very good day, with a following wind, typically only from within a stone's throw of the telephone exchange) and a 40-100Mbit product (widely in use at these speeds, since customers need only be within reasonable distance of a street cabinet).

      NTT never went to FTTC at all, the super-high population density in most of their service area means that FTTH made lots of sense for them. And indeed in several larger UK cities you will see the exact same thing from local providers offering FTTH service. But they don't do this with the FTTPoD model where people keep digging the road up, because that's not economic.

      BT continues to choose FTTP (not FTTPoD, all the fibre is run as far as the kerb for each premises) in a handful of scenarios, but it has given up on FTTPoD because there's no justification for training hundreds more engineers in order to fulfil that work, only to fire them all in 3-5 years when the roll-out is complete.

    11. Re:BT is doing the opposite of this in the UK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Infinity FTTC service is not ADSL. FTTC is implemented as VDSL. Yes that's still a digital subscriber line technology, but a different one.

      "Real fibre" can be at any speed determined by the provider. Infinity 3 and Infinity 4, the FTTPoD products you apparently wanted, are indeed "hundreds of megabits" but FTTP customers often buy ordinary BT Infinity, just delivered over fibre, so still 80/20 or even 40/10 asymmetric. After all, they're home customers, why would they care about hundreds of megabits, are four people going to all simultaneously watch different episodes of Game of Thrones in HD in order to show off? Nope.

      The "caps out" you spoke of for the FTTC product is, again, set by the provider. You could choose to configure it to run at 100Mbps for customers within say 100 metres of the street cabinet but BT do not offer that. If you look into the diagnostics for a VDSL modem you can see wire speeds can be negotiated far above 80Mbps, but the policy enforcement will ensure you don't transmit or receive faster than agreed. This is a contrast from the behaviour with ADSL where it was normal to run "as fast as possible" in order to get any sort of decent performance at all.

    12. Re:BT is doing the opposite of this in the UK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually what's driving this is simple user experience factors.

      FTTC and foreseeable improvements give most of the country perfectly usable Internet at a good price.

      People like you always think that growth is exponential. They see a graph over 10 years and, unable to understand how the world actually works, they think they can mentally extend it another 10 years into the future and make any kind of sense.

      Your home electricity supply for example. Did you upgrade yet to 40TW direct nuclear power? How will you power laser drills without that? What's that? Your household power usage remains very similar to twenty years ago? Well that can't be true, I have this graph from the 10 years after the widespread availability of the electric light bulb and demand _exploded_. It logically must continue exponentially forever, so you MUST want a 40TW power supply.

      That felt pretty ridiculous right? And that's how you people sound when talking about home Internet. 1Mbps DSL was not enough to really watch video in real time. 10Mbps ADSL is a struggle, but it's plausible. 100Mbps VDSL, easily achievable for most of the population without running fibre to their homes, delivers perfectly nice real-time HD video.

      And that's where the curve stops. Nobody is going to develop a 4D holographic experience, make content for it, and ship it out in the lifespan of the current network. No matter if that network is fibre, or just the FTTC overlay. So money spent preparing for a hypothetical future in which 100Mbps in the ordinary home is "just not enough" is money categorically wasted.

    13. Re:BT is doing the opposite of this in the UK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BTW Want proof that we're at the limit of what people are interested in paying extra for?

      Check out sales figures for 40/10 versus 80/20 products. With most providers the 80/20 product is only slightly more expensive, so why don't customers buy it? Because twice as much of something you've got plenty of is worth NOTHING.

      You can see a definitely flat line in the bandwidth availability charts for FTTC customers, hundreds of thousands of households in the UK went "Yeah, that's plenty thanks", not at 1Gbps, not at 200Mbps, but at 40Mbps.

  6. $40/mo is pretty nice by The-Ixian · · Score: 2

    I am paying CenturyLink $150/mo for synchronous 1Gbps (non-bundled) and I thought that was a pretty good deal.

    I know that DSL gets a bad rap but I was using 60Mbps VDSL before I switched to the 1Gbps service which, I believe, uses G.fast DSL to get from the demark to my apt... so take that cable!

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    1. Re:$40/mo is pretty nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is that the norm do you think or do you think most people are stuck with the kind of shit I have which is about 750Kb/s up and a few paltry Mb/s down?

      DSL sucks ass. I get 55Mb/s down and 10Mb/s up and in just the last month or two fibre showed up in front of my house.

      AND! The CRTC has mandated access to that fibre by third parties. Yay! Bring it on!

    2. Re:$40/mo is pretty nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I get 325/325 on cable.... so theres that (Canada)

    3. Re:$40/mo is pretty nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can't even fucking get 1Gbps... so I'm paying comcraptic $80/m for shitty 70Mbps, BUT Fibretecch Networks recently rolled through our city laying fiber. No idea who they're doing it for although I'll admit to not having checked in depth, but they hit ALL of the side streets as well as the main streets so it's not just for businesses, and it can't be AT&T as they'd lay their own. I don't think wow! has the $$$ and comcraptic is too shitty to do something nice, but if it is comcraptic you know that it's be some bargain price like $1k/m !Gbps down and 10Mbps up with a 10GB data cap.

    4. Re:$40/mo is pretty nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How the hell did you manage to get 70Mbps from Comcast? I'm paying them $80/month for 20Mbps and that's the fastest service they offer here.

      Like another poster said about this story, fiber goes right past my apartment but Verizon won't sell it to me, insisting I get ADSL instead. Since Comcast is faster (Verizon ADSL caps out at like 7Mbps) I'm using them.

      Amusingly if you really do have 70Mbps from Comcast that's faster than Verizon offers for their fiber service - Verizon FiOS caps out at 50Mbps.

    5. Re:$40/mo is pretty nice by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      I am paying CenturyLink $150/mo for synchronous 1Gbps (non-bundled) and I thought that was a pretty good deal.

      As well as being more than 3x as expensive, it's not called "Giga Mansion Smart Type". Japanese products have the best names.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    6. Re:$40/mo is pretty nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It gets a bad rap if you live more than 10 feet from a CO.

    7. Re:$40/mo is pretty nice by nanoflower · · Score: 1

      Hmm, I wouldn't complain about 70Mbps if that came without a monthly bandwidth cap. I'm paying $145 (with all taxes and fees included) for the voice/TV/Internet triple play and get about 90Mb/s up and 12Mb/s down but I'm limited to 300GB/month unless I want to pay that $10/50GB overage charge. The extra speed doesn't do much good if you can't use it because you hit the 300GB limit before the month was over.

    8. Re:$40/mo is pretty nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I had 60Mbps, then I got a letter the other day telling me that I should reboot my modem as they "free" upgraded me to 70Mbps.

      150Mbps is max currently in the area, although a few months back I thought I heard something on the radio about them rolling out 1Gbps in the metro area, although it was at an assininely high price, $400/m IIRC.

      Data caps: *snicker* I've been blowing by their supposed 250GB data "cap" for years now, but (a) it's not enforced here(never was), and (b) they never called me or if they did they declined to talk to the answering machine.

      I kinda hope that the fiber is for Google, but I doubt it... but I did find an article that I had forgotten about that Dibertech Networks was rolling out fiber to ALL of the metro area, or at least the three primary counties that comprise it, and that they had completed their fiber ring... ooo ... verizon has competition now if they light it up...

      I only have cable and internet, and some day this week when I remember to during business hours, I'm calling to cancel cable. I really only watch any TV during the winter and I've noticed the last several that the few channels that I watch outside of brief periods of new episodes of the few shows that I do watch run the same goddamned fscking reruns every fscking week on the same day, same time, fscking lazy program schedulers. They have plent of backcatalog episodes to do more mixing that that lazy crap even if they let a program randomize it.

      About the only thing that I occasionally watch on TV in the summer is to rarely see a good play in baseball, but the Tigers are sucking this year(gutting your starting pitching tends to do that and hanging onto that turkey hasbeenlander... that has to be the dumbest contract move that ever made, it's like jose consecos all over...). And hockey sucks with the salary caps making the league into a bunch of shittily mediocre teams slightly been than pro-am or college, and the lions are going to suck losing suh and fairley and hanging onto that bovine intelligence staufford. So I won't be missing sports programming in the summer/fall/winter not that I could stand to watch baseball(listen on radio while doing other things mostly except as noted above to occasionally see a good play, but hell if it was that good there'll be a video clip online somewhere anyways and if they pull it out next year, there's mlb.com and so on for NHL & NFL...)

  7. What Aussies would give for 1Gbps!!! by BringMyShuttle · · Score: 2

    Sad how Japan's yesterday is Australia's future:

    Right now Australia's Internet is pathetically slow by first world standards - though competitive by third world standards.... YAY! Internet speeds: Australia ranks 44th, study cites direction of NBN as part of problem http://www.abc.net.au/news/201...

    The Liberals are promising the NBN will deliver at least 25Mbps to most household... YAWN! The Coalition’s rebooted NBN plan proposes to use a mix of technologies, including Telstra’s copper network and cable networks, to deliver minimum broadband download speeds of 25Mbps to 90 per cent of households and businesses by 2020. http://www.businessspectator.c...

    And the best you can get if you pay through the nose is 100Mbps? WHAT A JOKE! http://www.whistleout.com.au/B...
    http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/...

  8. Meanwhile in Germany, by jaklode · · Score: 1

    we are still waiting for VDSL to roll out more.

    1. Re:Meanwhile in Germany, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still crappy. Don't touch it. Let the telecoms know that isn't good option either so they can roll cable instead.

    2. Re:Meanwhile in Germany, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We have Deutsche Glasfaser offering up to 200Mbps symmetric via fiber, with the base product (100Mbps symmetric) costing 35EUR (no installation cost if you get it when they first offer in an area). But they require 40% of the households to subscribe or they won't build it, and here's the kicker: Where I live, not enough people will subscribe. When the deadline for reaching the 40% threshold ran out, 24% had subscribed. Deutsche Glasfaser extended the deadline, but one month into the three month extension, subscriptions have only increased to 25%. So, there is a company offering symmetric fiber internet access and people would rather keep their slow ADSL and buggy cable connections. Not sure if this is relevant to the discussion, but I just had to vent.

  9. Probably not bad by MBGMorden · · Score: 1

    Honestly Japan being much more condensed it probably makes sense. In the US we're too spread out to abandon certain technologies yet. My parents still have (3Mbps) DLS as their only option. I have a brother who doesn't even have that. He uses he cell phone for all his internet browsing occasionally tethering it to a desktop.

    I live in a town - a small town (population ~8,000), but still a town, and we have good cable modem speeds but only the newest neighborhoods have fiber available (the local telecom company has installed it in new developments since 2010 or so, but hasn't retrofitted any older subdivisions).

    --
    "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    1. Re:Probably not bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Honestly Japan being much more condensed it probably makes sense. In the US we're too spread out to abandon certain technologies yet.

      I see this argument a lot. If it were true then those technologies would be available in the parts of the US that are densely populated.
      No, the big problem is oligopolies and the corrupt politicians that gives them a subsidized and protected market instead of splitting them up to promote competition.

    2. Re: Probably not bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hear that excuse all the time and it doesnt fly. Japan also has very very countryside areas.

    3. Re:Probably not bad by StayFrosty · · Score: 1

      I don't buy the population density argument if you are in a town or city of any size. I live in a city with a population of 100,000, but the best I can get is 60mbps down and a paltry 5mbps up. All the neighboring communities (1000-6000 people) have ftth from various local providers offering up to gigabit speeds who, for unknown reasons, can't seem to ever get fiber run here.

      If you aren't living in a town or city, hopefully ADSL is available but don't hold your breath.

      --
      "Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
    4. Re:Probably not bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't buy the population density argument if you are in a town or city of any size.

      You shouldn't, because it's pure bullshit. You don't have to look far to find countries with less population density and far better Internet. Of course, I'm not talking about Bumfuk, Kansas where your nearest neighbor is five miles away - but then, nobody else but industry shills is, either.

      Smoke and mirrors to distract from monopolies, psuedo-monopolies, and the idiot local governments that allow them.

    5. Re:Probably not bad by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's a load of crap. Some of the poorest served areas in the country are major metropolitan areas, including the major cities in the Northeast corridor.

      Internet access speed in the U.S. does not correspond with population density, at all. It matters entirely whether you're in one of the few lucky areas that has Google or other fiber access. In fact, if you happen to live in a small town that put in municipal fiber, you likely have far better internet access than the big city an hour down the road.

    6. Re:Probably not bad by known_coward_69 · · Score: 1

      when did japan start to get internet back in the 90's? US was first with consumer internet and that means we will be last with better tech because the carriers have to depreciate all the equipment they originally bought. just like other countries were the first with texting and 3G data, the US was first with a mass LTE deployment

    7. Re:Probably not bad by DarkOx · · Score: 1

      Anything from the 90's has already been replaced or has long been fully depreciated. The simple fact is the telephone operators resisted at first and then largely failed to be competitive in the consumer access space.

      This allowed the content guys "cable" to get in they game. They got everything to the "good enough" stage for major market segments, choked out the competitive offerings (the telcos and mom and pop ISPs) and have stagnated ever since. Mainly because they needed time to get their IP-VOD offerings up to industry par so they can protect their content distribution middle man revenue bonanza before allowing "cord-cutting" to be totally viable for most. Now that digital cable offers most of the on demand flexibility and DVR functions people seem to want they can lever their existing content agreements to ensure that stays the best deal. They don't have to worry about NFLX eating their lunch.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    8. Re:Probably not bad by chilenexus · · Score: 1

      DSL has a range limit of about 12,500 feet from the central office, or from the vault location they run fiber to from the CO, and a preference to be under 10,000 feet. Considering the large price for the equipment to support it from the telco side, they're not going to put that equipment in if there's only 4-6 customers within range and it'll take 20+ years at that rate to pay off that equipment. At best they'll get that equipment as a hand-me-down when it's been ripped out of someplace else that has been upgraded 2-3 steps higher if the telco is feeling generous, and if the more expensive equipment isn't cheaper to maintain. Population density does matter, in that the company doesn't want to lay out the cash to serve areas that will take a long time to pay them back their investment - unless there's good publicity for them rolled in with it, too.

    9. Re:Probably not bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Imagine if we, the USA, justified not building highways like Germany had, because Germany is not as large as the USA, and it would be "too hard" to do it here. What kind of terrible attitude would that be? Well, it's the one we now have towards fast Internet.

    10. Re:Probably not bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ISP:

      "The ground... in your service area... isn't compatible... with our brand of fibre optic cable! Yeah, that's the ticket!"

    11. Re:Probably not bad by babybird · · Score: 1

      This is very true. I used to live in a small western city (OK, like 80,000 population) in Colorado where the only broadband options for residential consumers were CenturyLink and Comcast. Comcast said they couldn't offer gigabit internet to the city because it wasn't feasible. So the citizens put up a ballot initiative to install municipal fiber with gigabit speeds for something like $50 or $80/mo., and when the ballot initiative passed, low and behold it didn't take but 2 months for Comcast to change its tune and say they'd be offering 2.4Gb service for about $10/mo. more than their current maximum 105Mb service, but only within the city and only in areas where the new municipal fiber was going to be available. To everyone else, either the former maximum or no service at all.

      In fact where I was living, my neighbor directly connecting to the back side of my lot could get that 105Mb service from Comcast, but I, on the other side of the property line could get nothing at all. Had I not decided to move to Arizona around that time, I'd have made a deal with my backyard neighbor to pay for internet service for him if he'd allow me to string a CAT5 cable out his back door to my back door.

      For comparison purposes, the only broadband available at my house was through CenturyLink, and with no Comcast competing with them, the most I could get from them was 1.5Mbit/892Kbit, while my backyard neighbor could get 100Mb from CenturyLink and connected to the same demark because we were in the same neighborhood and the next nearest dmark was 2 miles away (our neighborhood was in the middle of the country, just outside the city).

      The collusion, corruption, and extortion rampant throughout ISPs in the U.S. is way beyond the pale. There is zero excuse for any of it. Gotta love unbridled crapitalism I guess!

      --
      Keith D.
    12. Re:Probably not bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Density is part of it, competition is likely a bigger factor.

      I know where I live the town (~2000 people) could get DSL up to 10mbps. Outside of town if you can get DSL it is typically 1.5mbps tops. Except for a few areas that have a denser population (trailer park and a subdivision) the backbone infrastructure to those areas was upgraded to allow them to also support 10mbps dsl.

      The backbone to a remote that has 5 people off it is not likely to ever be upgraded until there is no alternative left those people are stuck at 1.5mbps. So that is the density argument.

      A few months ago an independent WISP started offering services up to 25mbps in town, suddenly 25mbps DSL became available in town. That is the competition argument.

      From my anecdotal experience in a small town, competition boosts speeds more, but only does so only where the density is high enough.

    13. Re:Probably not bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you looked at our highways? They aren't that different than Internet access. The infrastructure was built decades ago, sort of maintained some but never really upgraded or replaced unless there is no alternative. New highways are few and far between on builds. That seems very much like the internet infrastructure in many places. Put in once, sort of maintained, some small upgrades but no major upgrades unless there wasn't any other alternative. A few places have new fiber builds, but those are few and far between.

    14. Re:Probably not bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Moved to Austin, TX three years ago. Time Warner or AT&T for service - cable or DSL. Picked cable. At first, it was 10mb for the 'middle' package. Then they moved everyone up to 15mb 'for free' after a year. Then, after Google's big 'coming to Austin' thing, they started upgrading everyone.... it more than tripled to 50mb, 'for free', and I'm only paying a few dollars more than I was originally (the 'promotional rate' expired and the best deal I could get made it go up about $5).
      Up sucks, rated at 5, seen it as high as 7-8 a few times, usually runs about 4-5. Used to get about 45-50 down, but lately it's been hitting 60+.

      So yes, they CAN do better. Much better. Someone just needs to kick them in the ass and make them. In my case, Google did.

    15. Re:Probably not bad by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

      Lucky you. I live in a city that, with the entire metro counted, is over a million people. Yet my apartment building has 30+ year old wiring, and AT&T long ago cemented their illegal exclusivity contract by physically going into each cable box and destroying all the cable inside of them. Now the management refuses to pay for anyone to re-wire it all, so we're stuck with ADSL. I've seen a max of 26 down and 180K up. When I work from home, and need to do a voip conference call, we can either have some torrents going OR be streaming a single Netflix; anything more and the voip starts to cut out. Even more frustrating is that just across the street is real fiber...60-100 down and 40+ up. But it's technically in another city...and the "old boy" politics in Tulsa will keep it that way for all eternity.

  10. First World Internet by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Must be nice to live in a country with first-world internet service. There is absolutely no core reason, other than sheer monopolistic greed, for why we can't have internet of this quality in major US metropolitan areas.

    1. Re:First World Internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      hey, in this country we do things by capitalism.

      the market selects the best, most efficient solution, every time.

      and since by definition, the best solution is what the market selects, we
      are perfect. absolutely perfect.

      so stop second guessing the market and take your socialist whining
      somewhere else

    2. Re:First World Internet by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      hey, in this country we do things by capitalism.

      the market selects the best, most efficient solution, every time.

      and since by definition, the best solution is what the market selects, we
      are perfect. absolutely perfect.

      so stop second guessing the market and take your socialist whining
      somewhere else

      I couldn't have said it better.

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    3. Re:First World Internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Silicon Valley here, I pay $30/mo for 6mbps (would be $45+ but I purchased a modem). Comcast bites. Supposedly google is going to be doing fiber here soon, which makes sense given that it's their headquarters. I'll sign up if they ever offer it.

      Used to live in Japan, their ISPs rock.

    4. Re:First World Internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, forgot to sign.
      --
      roman_mir

    5. Re:First World Internet by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      corporate fascism isn't capitalism

    6. Re:First World Internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I sincerely hope you're being sarcastic. The only reason why the USA doesn't have better internet is because government grant exclusivity rights to internet companies. That's the TOTAL OPPOSITE of the free market and capitalism. Government shouldn't be giving exclusivity rights. The market should be open to everyone willing to put their money in. Heck, google alone had one hell of a fight trying to stablish their services and they're a humongous corporation with a lot of power. Imagine the average company trying to lay fiber optic. Nah, they won't bother. Too much of a hassle and dangerous.

      Also, that's not even getting into all the billions of dollars wasted by the government through subsidies trying to get fiber internet across different areas only to result in naught. I'm pretty sure there have been many stories here on slashdot about that.

    7. Re:First World Internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't call it monopolistic greed, call it what if is - government failure.

  11. In France by dujardin · · Score: 2

    Orange is providing 500/250 but is progressively upgrading to 1 gig download, for €46/month. Coverage is not 100%, only 4M of a total of 34M in the country. Other operators give 1 gig (Iliad, Bouygues) but they cover far less places. NC/SFR is also offering 800 Mbit download on mixed fiber/cable (Docsis), again only on a few territories. Orange is actually encouraging switching to Fiber, pictures of telecom hubs show how much less real estate it takes compared to copper. A current experiment runs in Palaiseau to fully dismise the copper network.

  12. ADSL is for apps by tepples · · Score: 2

    For a lot of the world population, ADSL is the last mile through which apps on tablets connect to the Internet. It might be slower than fiber, but it's still a lot faster than cellular. If you try to sustain a download through an entire cap period, cellular is on average not much faster than 14.4 dial-up.*

    * 5 GB/mo = 40000000 kbit/mo * 1 mo/30 days * 1 day/86400 s = about 15 kbps

    1. Re:ADSL is for apps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which is faster? A gallon of milk, or a liter of whale sperm?

      Hint: Volume is not a measure of speed.

    2. Re:ADSL is for apps by tepples · · Score: 1

      Volume over time is a measure of speed. 5 GB/mo is a speed.

    3. Re:ADSL is for apps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      King Aspie totally misses the point AGAIN.

    4. Re: ADSL is for apps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's throughput, not speed. Technically "speed" would be latency.

    5. Re: ADSL is for apps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Latency is a time, not speed.

    6. Re: ADSL is for apps by tepples · · Score: 1

      The latency to return an entire file is roughly the latency to return the first byte plus the length of the file divided by throughput. Therefore, throughput contributes to the latency measurement.

    7. Re:ADSL is for apps by stoatwblr · · Score: 1

      GPON gear is cheaper than G.max. Fibre is cheaper than copper to lay.

      The difference is that western telcos can pretty much charge the entire cost of equipment to go on the end of existing copper up front, whilst laying fibre needs to be amortised over a 20 year period. Because they're focussed on the next 3 months, this screws up any long-term planning objectives traditional telcos may have had.

  13. Frontier FiOS by tepples · · Score: 1

    Here in Indiana, Frontier continues to offer FiOS service under license from Verizon.

  14. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't get me wrong, like anyone I'd love a fiber connection for $50 a month but what does your average person need with that kind of connection? I run Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and other fairly demanding connections over 3Mbps ADSL and unless I'm really stressing the connection (running both Netflix/Hulu, Hulu & large downloads, etc) I don't see any issues. Just the other day I downloaded a 1GB ISO for Ubuntu and it only took about 20 minutes. I could get 5Mbps if I wanted to spend $10 more a month but as I don't see issues most of the time I don't see the need. Cost is more the issue for me, the base package through my local ISP (1Mbps) is about $50, the highest is about $70 and it only brings you up to 5 Mbps. I'm fine with third world internet speeds, but why am I paying more than many customers with first world internet connections for my third world one?

    1. Re:Why? by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      Ask those guys who buy 32GB RAM for a gaming or video editing machine... if some people have extra money, they will buy the bigger numbers.

    2. Re:Why? by The-Ixian · · Score: 2

      what does your average person need with that kind of connection?

      For streaming HD content.

      I get it that network border peering agreements have a lot to do with things, but it seems as though even with a 50+Mbps Internet connection, I was still encountering reduced performance at times.

      Since going to Gigabit, I have not had any issues at all.

      I don't utilize most of the bandwidth personally, but I do carve out a DMZ for public WIFI access that my neighbors can use (I live in an apartment building).

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    3. Re:Why? by chilenexus · · Score: 1

      You're going to find this hard to believe, but there are residences who have more than one person using the internet at a time. If you've got 2 roommates, will your 3Mbps connection be any good if someone else is using Netflix, Hulu, or YouTube (lol - fairly demanding?) at the same time?

      Sure, your download only took 20 minutes - but that's 20 minutes that you can't be doing much of anything else over the internet. Is that download actively holding your attention? Or perhaps it's time to pick up a book while your connection is tied up.

      Another point being that people don't want to have to "make do" with a connection they are paying more for than most of the rest of the world, and getting at best half of the speed.

    4. Re:Why? by dujardin · · Score: 1

      I agree that 1 Gbps is probably overkill. In fact, I'm myself only on a 200Mbit contract (at 41€/month) and I'm happy though I just use 100Mb/s of it, even with five users and we're quite heavy on downloads. The thing is that the choice is between a slow ADSL (2 Mb/s due to technology limits), and super-fast fiber. I think that current usages require around 10-20 Mb/s for a nice experience, and that it would probably make more sense as a collectivity to upgrade networks by bringing the fiber closer to the homes, but still using the copper termination for the last 10 to 1000 meters (think FFTC/FTTB/whatever). Commercial interplays and regulations result in what we see now, competing companies focusing all on the same high-density areas which enjoy several very-high speed deployments, very progressive FTTH deployment because it takes half a day for two men to connect a house with the FTTH relay down the street (think there remain around 30M houses), and lots of people still hanging behind more than 4km of wire. It semt to me that the UK had chosen the progressive path, providing fast VDSL to nearly the whole country in just a few years. If it's not working well there either, it's quite sad.

    5. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Copper lines don't last forever, I don't like seeing attenuation and error rate rise every year with no decent alternative.

    6. Re:Why? by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      On a single verizon lte connection ive run 2 netflix streams and youtube without issue it often runs in the 20mbps range yet it has trouble smoothly streaming a single twitch stream.

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    7. Re:Why? by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      Don't get me wrong, like anyone I'd love a fiber connection for $50 a month but what does your average person need with that kind of connection?

      Yesterday my son fired up the PS4 to play some silly game or other and the damn thing needed an update -- 5Gbytes!

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
  15. And soon the USA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    will Get 2 cups and a piece of strign. USA #1!!

  16. Giga Mansion Smart Type by Quirkz · · Score: 2

    Giga Mansion Smart Type - I swear, Japan has the best names for everything. It's always a little stiff, comes off as just made up enough that maybe it's a joke, and maybe it was composed by a robot, but then you can't stop saying it to yourself over and over as if there's a code to be cracked there, where if you can just get it, it'll actually make sense.

    --
    The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
    1. Re:Giga Mansion Smart Type by Nethemas+the+Great · · Score: 2

      The trouble is mostly in the translation. Japanese doesn't easily match up 1-for-1 with western languages when you're focused on the words. I'm not sure what the state of concept based translation software is but translation web services use the former.

      --
      Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
    2. Re:Giga Mansion Smart Type by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not a translation problem in this case. Mansion is not a translation, they use the same word pronounced phonetically "mahn-shun." It refers to a nicer quality apartment. They also have apartments (pronounced apaah-to) that are cheaper and not as nice as mansions. They also use english words like "smart" and "type" all the time. Source: I lived in Japan for 4 years and am a fluent speaker. Here's a link to FLET's english promotion for HIKARI NEXT Giga Mansion Smart Type

      https://flets.com/english/campaign/hikari.html

    3. Re:Giga Mansion Smart Type by Nethemas+the+Great · · Score: 1

      Actually you're proving my point. "Manshon" to "mansion" is not a proper translation of the concept. The western world's notion of "mansion" is not a large apartment house but an over-sized, typically opulent single family dwelling. The same is true for those odd "decorator" words that are commonly attached in Japanese (mostly marketing material). The Japanese usage is meant to emphasis that it is the appropriate choice for an apartment house (manshon) as opposed to a family dwelling (famiri).

      Accordingly a concept translation might be something like: "Hikari Next Generation Giga for apartment houses" and "Hikari Next Generation Giga for homes."

      --
      Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
    4. Re:Giga Mansion Smart Type by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

      To make it utter perfection the name should be "Giga Kitten Mansion Smart Robot Type"

    5. Re:Giga Mansion Smart Type by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 1

      Loan words often change in meaning from what the word in the original language meant. Attend, in english, means "to be present at" or "deal with". In French, it's a form of the verb for "to wait" (the French use the verb "assister" for the english meaning of attend). Another fun one is "Arbeit", which in German is the word for work, but in Japanese and Korean, it specifically means "part time job".

  17. Meanwhile in Greece. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sending this from DSL connection. From Greece.

    FUCKING PAIN, EVEN MY ISP SENT ME A PIECE OF SHIT MODEM/HUB/WIRELESS COMBO DEVICE.
    Even worser, my national telecom is investing on useless technologies like VSDL (improvement of ADSL, but still crappy even for Bulgarian standards) and Satellite that actually no-one uses. Man, in the last days I was thinking creating a mesh network and tell propaganda why that thing is superior than the Greek options.

  18. I moved and had to switch to Cox Cable Modem by frog_strat · · Score: 1

    I was on ATT DSL. Cox makes DSL look heavenly. Cox works ok for a while but periodically just stops for about a minute. Now my wife understands my efforts to try to avoid cable modem. They gave everyone a supposed bump up from 5mb to 15. I say keep the 10mb and just give me a DSL level reliable connection.

    1. Re:I moved and had to switch to Cox Cable Modem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You need to ask for a new drop from the pole. Bad lines, mostly caused by aging (UV damage, mechanical stress/strain, and water leakage) can cause this type of intermittent performance. Call them every day and complain every time it happens. Demand a supervisor technician replace the line. If problem persists after this, keep calling and make it worth their while to figure it out.

    2. Re:I moved and had to switch to Cox Cable Modem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably need to check your upstream power level. Your disconnects may be due to the fact that your modem is screaming due to all the noise on your connection. Get Cox to fix the noise level (bad taps, bad wiring, etc on or from the street), or else do like I did and get a Motorola Signal Booster drop amp w/ active return. This made my daily constant disconnects completely disappear, put my upstream power level within spec.

  19. what for? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Still too expensive. I pay 2EUR/month for limited (2h) phone service. My phone carrier also happens to be one of the 4 big ISPs here. I get unlimited access to their access points, tethering allowed, a couple simultaneous SD video streams won't ever lag, sub-50ms ping for games I care about, no noticeable jitter. I'm not in a hurry to pay for my own AP's electricity.

    1. Re:what for? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and you waist that time on slashdot?

  20. in the UK it would be fibre by YesIAmAScript · · Score: 1

    In the UK openreach VDSL is called "fibre". Here it is called "superfast fibre". As if "up to" 80mbit DSL is superfast.

    http://www.superfast-openreach...

    And it's common to do this in some other places in Europe.

    It makes AT&T's fibs about their service look like small potatoes.

    --
    http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
    1. Re:in the UK it would be fibre by Guy+Harris · · Score: 1

      In the UK openreach VDSL is called "fibre". Here it is called "superfast fibre".

      To be fair, it sounds as if they are running more fibre, just not necessarily all the way to your home.

    2. Re:in the UK it would be fibre by stoatwblr · · Score: 1

      "To be fair, it sounds as if they are running more fibre"

      They've been running fibre in distribution for decades. This is fibre to the street cabinets.

      Unfortunately the circuit is a bastard hybrid of fibre to a street DSLAM coupled with a voice pair back to the central office. There's no good reason why DSLAM/concentrators couldn't have been used, making the entire copper loop the distance of the cabnet to the customer premises.

      As it is, copper loop problems between the cabinet and the central office can seriously screw up VDSL delivery and debugging them takes _months_ (personal experience with a wet trunk run back to the CO)

  21. 10/10 Mbit/sec - 16 EUR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slowest package available is 10/10 Mbit/sec for about 16 EUR and in some areas 5/1 Mbit/sec for 16 EUR.
    Fastest here is 300/300 Mbit/sec 34 EUR.
    This includes taxes.
     

    1. Re:10/10 Mbit/sec - 16 EUR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      300 Mbit/sec aka 37.5 Megabyte for 34 EUR + 3 EUR for router per month, including 20% VAT.

    2. Re:10/10 Mbit/sec - 16 EUR by Guy+Harris · · Score: 1

      So, from the "EUR", we can identify "here", for both of those posts, as "some Eurozone country".

      Could somebody be so kind as to indicate which particular Eurozone country/countries are being referred to here?

    3. Re:10/10 Mbit/sec - 16 EUR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I don't know about the previous AC, but in Bulgaria I'm paying 7.50 EUR for 50mbits (fiber to the building, copper inside). Yep 7.50, about 8$.

  22. And CenturyLink in Seattle... by greenwow · · Score: 0

    is still working on phasing in ADSL. They've almost got service to my entire block. It only took them fifteen years since they started. Most of the neighborhood still can't even get DSL.

  23. We found the CenturyLink fanboi! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    And, he has mod points.

    Internet access in Seattle sucks, and attacking its victims shows just how bad it is. I f***ing hate my dial-up. I had faster access in Alabama seventeen years ago than I now have in Seattle. Plus, I'm paying $3,200 per month for a two bedroom place with no AC that is falling apart. There's a reason so many young developers move to Seattle then quit their jobs so quickly and flee.

    1. Re:We found the CenturyLink fanboi! by Guy+Harris · · Score: 1

      OK, where is the fanboy in question? All I saw in the post to which you're responding is damnation with faint praise ("is still working on phasing in ADSL", "They've almost got service to my entire block", It only took them fifteen years since they started", etc.).

    2. Re:We found the CenturyLink fanboi! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      His post was quickly voted down and marked as a troll because he dared to criticize the phone monopoly here in Seattle. The people here are so CONservative that you put your health in danger for going against the corporations that rule nearly every moment of our daily lives. The moderators here are the same way. They hate people that try to fight corporations.

  24. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  25. Re:ADSL is for cows. by sims+2 · · Score: 1

    Yes adsl is for cows http://www.flexit.co.uk/case_s... Maybe someday fiber will be for humans.

    --
    Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
  26. So what's new? AT&T did this already. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In my part of the U.S., AT&T hasn't accepted new orders for landline or DSL service for a couple of years, and existing service is so messed up that conversion to Uverse is mandatory. The only realistic alternative is crapcast for much more money and better speed (though the latter's questionable at high-load times). Just typical U.S. screw-the-customer business practices. Note also that landline phone and DSL are regulated services (with alternative ISP possible) while Uverse is an "information system" product therefore unregulated and locked in to the AT&T/Yahoo ISP mess. At least in Japan the pipe and the ISP are unbundled, as they were in the real (A)DSL days, so there's some potential for competition.