[RTC List] Japan rockets ahead into the Internet's future

[Jonathan Speaker]

from the SF Chronicle;
 

Japan rockets ahead into the Internet's future


Lightning-fast broadband connections leave U.S. infrastructure in the Dark
Ages


(08-30) 04:00 PDT Tokyo -- 


Americans invented the Internet, but the Japanese are running away with it.

Broadband service here is eight to 30 times as fast as in the United States
- and considerably cheaper. Japan has the world's fastest Internet
connections, delivering more data at a lower cost than anywhere else, recent
studies show.

Accelerating broadband speed in this country - as well as in South Korea and
much of Europe - is pushing open doors to Internet innovation that are
likely to remain closed for years to come in much of the United States.

The speed advantage allows the Japanese to watch broadcast-quality,
full-screen television over the Internet, an experience that mocks the
grainy, wallet-size images Americans endure.

Ultra-high-speed applications are being introduced for low-cost,
high-definition teleconferencing, for telemedicine - which allows urban
doctors to diagnose diseases from a distance - and for advanced
telecommuting to help Japan meet its goal of doubling the number of people
who work from home by 2010.

"For now and for at least the short term, these applications will be cheaper
and probably better in Japan," said Robert Pepper, senior managing director
of global technology policy at Cisco Systems, the networking giant based in
San Jose.

Japan has moved ahead of the United States on the wings of better wire and
more aggressive government regulation, industry analysts say.

The copper wire used to hook up Japanese homes is newer and runs in shorter
loops to telephone exchanges than in the United States. This is partly a
matter of geography and demographics: Japan is relatively small, highly
urbanized and densely populated. But better wire is also a legacy of
American bombs, which razed much of urban Japan during World War II and led
to a wholesale rewiring of the country.

In 2000, the Japanese government seized its advantage in wire. In sharp
contrast to the Bush administration over the same time period, regulators
here compelled big phone companies to open up wires to upstart Internet
providers.

In short order, broadband exploded. At first, it used the same DSL
technology that exists in the United States. But because of the better,
shorter wire in Japan, DSL service here is much faster. Ten to 20 times as
fast, according to Pepper, one of the world's leading experts on broadband
infrastructure.

Indeed, DSL in Japan is often five to 10 times as fast as what is widely
offered by U.S. cable providers, generally viewed as the fastest American
carriers. (Cable has not been much of a factor in Japan.)

Perhaps more important, competition in Japan gave a kick in the pants to
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., once a government-controlled
enterprise and still Japan's largest phone company. With the help of
government subsidies and tax breaks, NTT installed a nationwide network of
fiber-optic lines to homes, making the lower-capacity copper wires obsolete.

"Obviously, without the competition, we would not have done all this at this
pace," said Hideki Ohmichi, NTT's senior manager for public relations.

His company now offers speeds on fiber of up to 100 megabits per second - 17
times as fast as the top speed generally available from U.S. cable. About
8.8 million Japanese homes have fiber lines - roughly nine times the number
in the United States.

The burgeoning optical fiber system is hurtling Japan into an Internet
future that experts say Americans are unlikely to experience for at least
several years.

Shoji Matsuya, director of diagnostic pathology at Kanto Medical Center in
Tokyo, has tested an NTT telepathology system scheduled for nationwide use
next spring.

It allows pathologists - using high-definition video and remote-controlled
microscopes - to examine tissue samples from patients living in areas
without access to major hospitals. Those patients need only find a clinic
with the right microscope and an NTT fiber connection.

Japan's leap forward, as the United States has lost ground among major
industrialized countries in providing high-speed broadband connections, has
frustrated many American high-tech innovators.

"The experience of the last seven years shows that sometimes you need a
strong federal regulatory framework to ensure that competition happens in a
way that is constructive," said Vinton Cerf, a vice president at Mountain
View's Google Inc.

Japan's lead in speed is worrisome because it will shift Internet innovation
away from the United States, warns Cerf, who is widely credited with helping
invent some of the Internet's basic architecture. 

As a champion of Japanese-style competition through regulation, Cerf
supports network neutrality legislation pending in Congress. It would
mandate that phone and cable companies treat all online traffic equally,
without imposing higher tolls for certain content.

U.S. phone and cable companies, which control about 98 percent of the
country's broadband market, strongly oppose the proposed laws, saying they
would discourage the huge investments needed to upgrade broadband speed.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

 
Jonathan Speaker, COO
StreamGuys, Inc.
707.667.9479 x255
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