Too-Much-TV

Broadband in Japan, May 2004

Download japanbbsubsMay04.xls

Number of broadband subscribers in Japan, end of May 2004.

DSL 11,819,177 (11,514,995)
Fiber 1,327,775 (1,240,935)
Cable 2,661,000 (2,623,000)
Total 15,807,952 (15,378,930)

More unlicensed spectrum

The Nikkei's reporting that next spring MPHPT will double the amount of unlicensed spectrum by allocating 355MHz in the 5GHz band. Unfortunately this still leaves Japan behind the US both in available spectrum and power.

Article here, http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/AC/TNKS/Nni20040630D30JFF03.htm (subscription required.)

WSIS and Internet governance (paper)

I've written a paper about Internet governance (PDF) for the Association for Progressive Communications.

The paper's intended as an introduction to the discussions about Internet governance in WSIS, and also makes some suggestions about how civil society can engage in the WSIS processes and also other ICT policy forums. And it's already out of date -- need to find some way to keep it current.

Broadband subscribers - April 2004

Download japanbbsubsApr04.xls

Number of broadband subscribers in Japan, end of April 2004.

DSL 11,514,995 (11,196,830)
Fiber 1,240,935 (1,142,335)
Cable 2,623,000 (2,578,000)
Total 15,378,930 (14,917,165)

DSL back above 300,000/month. Fiber subs again just below 100,000/month. And the big news of the month is Softbank buying Japan Telecom for about $3 billion. And Japan Telecom is the largest shareholder in the #3 DSL provide eAccess, about 16% of shares I think.

Presentation, Shanghai

Presentation from UN ICT Task Force Asia and Pacific regional meeting on Internet Governance. 21 May, Shanghai.

Download IG-Shanghai-AJP.ppt (Powerpoint, 176 KB, slides with a few notes/comments.)

I was asked to explain what's happened since the Summit, comment on what was said at the ITU's expert workshop and UN ICT Task Force Global Forum. A 20 minute presentation in 10.

Internet governance roadmap

Internet governance working group -- roadmap of known tasks. Not official, my interpretation of comments made by Markus Kummer at various meetings.

(Some working group activities may continue after the Summit. It has a lot to do.)

FTTH increasing - March '04 broadband stats

Download japanbbsubsmar04.xls

Number of broadband subscribers in Japan, end of March 2004.

DSL 11,196,830 (10,904,236)
Fiber 11,196,830 (1,042,776)
Fiber 1,142,335 (1,042,776)
Cable 2,578,000 (2,546,000)
Total 14,917,165 (14,493,012)

DSL increase again just below 300,000/month. But fiber subs are now pushing 100,000/month for the first time (99,559 gain in March.) Almost 32% of households.

The Telecommunications Business Law revised last year and being implemented now, would force NTT East and West to allow other carriers access to its fiber network. NTT is also fighting a Fair Trade Commission cease and desist order claiming the NTT charges competitors higher fiber network access fees than it set as the monthly fee for it's retail fiber to the home service in violation of the anti-monopoly law.

Broadband in Italy and Sweden

Powerpoint about broadband in Italy and Sweden (file size about 1M.)

The presentation was in January, and most of the research done in July 2003 -- so parts are dated. But I think the conclusion is sound: eBiscom is the most advanced broadband company, beats everything going on in Japan and Korea. The only provider, large scale and out of "pilot", I've heard of that's offering fully integrated services, a real triple play.

I've used the notes function so there's a quite detailed description of each slide. Try to describe and compare the two leading European broadband companies, Bredbandsbolaget (Bredband or B2) in Sweden, and eBiscom in Italy.

Nikkei: Japan Broadband cheapest and fastest

Last Wednesday's (April 21) Nikkei describes a new report from the OECD claiming that Japanese companies are offering the cheapest and fastest broadband services:

"The survey, which was conducted in October 2003, shows Japanese companies leading the pack with KDDI Corp., NTT East Corp. and usen Corp. offering throughput of 100 megabits per second with their fiber-optic networks.

In addition, no foreign firms matched the copper phone line-based digital subscriber line (DSL) service of eAccess Ltd., another Japanese firm, featuring a throughput of 40 mbps."

[Yahoo!BB launched a 45Mbps DSL service at the end of January 2004.)]

"Three services offered by two Japanese companies made the list of the world's cheapest services, among those with throughput of at least 10 mbps. They are the 12-mbps Yahoo BB service of Yahoo Japan Corp., at 19.09 dollars per month; KDDI's 100-mbps service, which costs 20.07 dollars; and Yahoo BB's 26-mbps service, at 20.54 dollars."

I think Nikkei must be referring to the forthcoming "OECD Information Technology Outlook 2004", there's no new broadband/telecomms report (at the moment) on the OECD's website http://www.oecd.org

FTTH: over 1 million subscribers

Download japanbbsubsfeb04.xls

Number of broadband subscribers in Japan, end of February 2004.

DSL 10,904,236 (10,612,671)
Fiber 1,042,776 (960,926)
Cable 2,546,000 (2,510,000)
Total 14,493,012 (14,083,597)

About 31% of households.

Now over 1 million subscribers on Fiber. But DSL increase below 300,000/month for the first time since July 2003.