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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=953550014-30082007>from the SF
Chronicle;</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=953550014-30082007></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=953550014-30082007>
<H1>Japan rockets ahead into the Internet's future</H1>
<H2>Lightning-fast broadband connections leave U.S. infrastructure in the Dark
Ages</H2>
<DIV>
<P><STRONG>(08-30) 04:00 PDT Tokyo</STRONG> --
<P>Americans invented the Internet, but the Japanese are running away with
it.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>"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.</P>
<P>Japan has moved ahead of the United States on the wings of better wire and
more aggressive government regulation, industry analysts say.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.)</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>"Obviously, without the competition, we would not have done all this at this
pace," said Hideki Ohmichi, NTT's senior manager for public relations.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>Shoji Matsuya, director of diagnostic pathology at Kanto Medical Center in
Tokyo, has tested an NTT telepathology system scheduled for nationwide use next
spring.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P></P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>"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.</P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>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.</P>
<P></P>
<P>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.</P><!--/articlecontent -->
<P id=pageno>This article appeared on page <STRONG>C - 1</STRONG> of the
San Francisco Chronicle</P></DIV></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT face=Arial size=2>Jonathan Speaker, COO</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT face=Arial size=2>StreamGuys, Inc.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT face=Arial size=2>707.667.9479 x255</FONT></DIV>
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