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After my trip to Japan a couple of weeks ago I can see that the growth in BB will continue to be strong with all the promotion going on, like at the major suburban stations in Osaka and Tokyo. Though they weren't too keen to sign me up when I said I needed it in Australia, bugger! 12Mbps sure beats 0.5Mbps.
A few things did come out from my research into the BB market in Japan.
Many people who had 12Mbps couldn't use it properly as their PCs were too old. One user I interview could not play even 1/4 screen video and though she needed 100Mbps. After explaining that you only need 1.5Mbps to play full screen video she was very surprised. Simply the PC did not have the grunt to play video let alone full frame video. This is going to be a real problem in the market as people are signing up for 12Mbps, when they probably only need 2Mbps. Clearly the BB providers do not want to educate the market on this issue as very people will go for the higher cost plans.
Another thing that came out were the number of people who could not get ADSL as they were too far from the exchange and they lived in apartment blocks that could not have cable tv/internet put in. This really surprised me, not about the apartment being too old, but the distance to the exchange. This is a major problem in Australia, you would expect here, but not in the suburbs of Osaka.
From what I read in the YahooBB magazine they are in the process of getting some new equipment that should increase the range from the exchange (at 2Mbps) and allow upto 24Mbps for those very close to the exchange.
There does not seem to be much content out there for this hugh broadband market to use. I have been disappointed the number of Japanese readers viewing the video on our web site (it has only been a month or so), but I am sure this will improve over time.
I was very pleased to see that 1.5Mbps video hosted in the USA played fine on YahooBB in Osaka. It will be interesting to see over time how the pipes to USA and other parts of the world cope with the hugh BB sink that is Japan.
100 Mbps fiber optic connections have been around in Japan and available for the public since at least 2000, if not earlier. It's just now that YahooBB has been slashing prices that started a boom in cheap internet access. Now in order to attract new customers they have to offer more capacity for less. Whether the consumer can use the bandwidth or has the hardware to take advantage of it is not really an issue. People here are notorious for throwing out perfectly usable high tech products and getting new models at the drop of a hat. I think it's more important that they're simply getting the coverage out there and it's spreading.
ADSL subscribers
12/2001 1,524,348
12/2002 5,645,728
04/2003 7,477,945
05/2003 7,907,437
FTTH (fiber) subscribers
01/2002 12,337
12/2002 206,189
04/2003 346,936
05/2003 398,336
Internet subscribers using cable TV network
12/2001 1,303,000
12/2002 1,954,000
04/2003 2,135,000
05/2003 2,183,000
Total of ADSL/FTTH/Cable
12/2001 2.84 million
12/2002 7.81 million
04/2003 9.96 million
05/2003 10.49 million
But I read the article as 20 million users, that would mean 2 users per subscription.
The Telecommunications Ministry said in an annual white paper that 60 million Japanese -- nearly half the population -- will be surfing the Net on high-speed broadband networks by 2007.This compares with about 20 million now.
The number of subscribers with a dial up connection (normal telephone line) peaked at about 21.62 million in August last year and is now steadily going down as more and more people change to some form of broadband.
12/2001 19.75 million
12/2002 21.19 million
04/2003 20.26 million
05/2003 20.16 million
It is true that companies like Yahoo and NTT are spending a lot of money on broadband promotion. The monthly growth of ADSL subscribers has gone down from more than 500K to 450K in the last few months. This trend will continue; some early adapters changing from ADSL to FTTH, others not able to get ADSL because they live too far away, or happy with the cheaper dial-up connection.
In general how does this compare with the US and European penetration?
PS Whats up skip - does australian bigest telecomunication company still promote broadband with "generous" 300M download allowance?
takagi all these broadband figures for Japan are great, but where are they coming from? I'm not disputing the veracity of the figures, I'd just like to know the source. Thanks for the link to the IAjapan page. I had seen that quoted in the news but hadn't seen the site.
In the last six months the competition has really started to heat up (nothing like Japan though). There are many suppliers with A$99 plans with 10GB or unlimited download on 0.5Mbps ADSL. Unlike Japan where most of the content is downloaded from within Japan, Australians download more than half of their data from the USA. This is much more expensive data and something the Japanese Telcos will be making significant savings on.
How many people here are placing broadband style content on their sites - video running at 0.4Mbps or higher?
Are many people viewing this content?
What video format are the most popular in Japan; Quicktime, WM or Realplayer?
What type of content is it?
Do you think it benefits the sales results of the site?
Oh, and just what the hell are people using 12 or even 100Mbps connections for? Is there really the content out there to take advantage of it or is all just file swapping?
How many people here are placing broadband style content on their sitesI'm not, but since I got my 100Mbps FTTH connection at my house I do use a lot more streaming video and audio services. I notice that there are quite a few Japanese media outfits that are targeting this market. They are putting up some hefty pages with all of the Flash and Multimedia you can handle. My opinion is that they are just using the bandwidth and over designing the pages, but that's what I would expect from a first generation BB site. The market will mature....eventually.
Are many people viewing this content?I'm not sure about that. Does anyone know if the YahooBB packages set your homepage to the YahooBB site? That would certainly increase the volume to some degree.
What video format are the most popular in Japan; Quicktime, WM or Realplayer?I see a lot of QuickTime on sites. Remember that Japan is also probably Apple's best market per capita. I don't see much of Real out there. Mostly it's WM and QT, but these are personal observations, I don't have market figures for this.
Oh, and just what the hell are people using 12 or even 100Mbps connections for?heh heh...jealous ;)
I actually got my 100Mbps FTTH because there was a deal and it cost less than my old 30Mbps cable connection (which rarely broke 1Mbps). I use my connection for video conferencing, media feeds and hopefully in the near future I can pick up a Voice over IP modem and use the extra bandwidth to free me completely from NTT's grasp. I will do all of my home phones over the net if I can.
oh...and thanks for clarifying that takagi.
Unlike Japan where most of the content is downloaded from within Japan, Australians download more than half of their data from the USA. This is much more expensive data and something the Japanese Telcos will be making significant savings on.
I believe that all big ISPs (Telstra for sure) have peering agreements in which they do not pay for data transfers between each other. Also many Japanese sites are hosted in other countries as hosting in Japan is much more expensive.
What video format are the most popular in Japan; Quicktime, WM or Realplayer
My 12M is actually more like 1.5M but I dont complain because I live 4 km from phone exchange.
I have some heavy sound files (1MB) on my page, with option for broadband and dialup. About twice more people choose broadband than dialup. But my page is far from being representative.
One thing is important to mention in this thread. Although the number of dialup accounts is still twice than broadband it is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. The broadband users will definetly be more active and spend more time on the net. The number of computers or users per account is also different. Dial up users rarely (never) hook up more than one computer to the net while broadband users very often have more computers connected.
The broadband users will definetly be more active and spend more time on the net. The number of computers or users per account is also different. Dial up users rarely (never) hook up more than one computer to the net while broadband users very often have more computers connected.
Definitely agree! I know of one person who has a home network, with a computer for him, one for his wife, and a connection for his cousin's playstation2.
Percentage of the Japanese population living in a household with access to internet grew in 12 months from 62.4% to 73.0%. Note: having access does not neccessarily mean using it!
Well, being an expat, reading Japanese can be hard.
Yahoo Japan, the leader in Japanese fast internet access, is applying to move its shares onto the main market for Japanese stocks and off the tech startups list.
