100Mbps for $41? → Now were talking a deal here.

Would be nice to have that here in USA. To bad the USA companies only think about money and are worried about going out of business. Here in the states we have companies that research and develop but when it come to implementing it seems we choke unless the government intervenes just like what they did for HDTV into making it a reality.
How can they do it in Asia?

well Japanese land mass is alot smaller than the United States... Implementing dsl and fiber over the vast expanse of the united states would be very expensive. The Telcos are trying to roll out dsl to as many ppl as possible... however in doing so, they can spend less time and funds on improving the existing dsl infrastructure... plus its more cost effective for telcos to roll out the existing dsl b/c each person ends up paying 40-60 bucks. But all it comes down to is the land mass/ distance from co/dslam.

why can't companies work together to develop a broadband technology to overcome cost and distance problems?
We did it with HDTV.
edit...
Well with what is available today I would say forget DSL if your more than 10-12k away from CO, it probably better to get cable HSI. ADSL2 and ADSL2+ has more potential in getting like 4 mbps service to 18k but I know of only one regional CLEC using ADSL2 and the ADSL2 modems are just starting to come out so implementation is slow and molasses.
My understanding is if they bond pairs for ADSL2+ implementations the distance practically double from the CO and with the mentally of the boardroom they would probably want to double the price for that service.

We are also the biggest economy in the world!

To deploy fiber should still be a relatively small fraction of our GDP/budget compared to what the japan's paid.

Certainly, yes it is ridiculous to expect the entire us to be "wired" instantly. If we "only" grew at the rate they are going, it probably would take ~10 years to have the major cities going in the US. We could certainly afford to grow much faster, but nobody wants to foot the bill.

Yes, we would probably be in the red for a while during the construction, but that's what always happens with the creation of utilities (water,electricity,phone). You make all of the money after the equipment/infrastructure has been installed. You can't sell the customer nothing!

Although I would bet that deploying more remote terminals +DSL would be cheaper for residential purposes, for the time being. Yes, Definitely get the long haul to the RT fiber (which is where its cheaper right now). Get people broadband and lay the foundation for FTH at the same time!

In ~10 years when Fiber to the home is standardised/inexpensive, then you only have to reach as far as the remote terminal.

Also, japan isn't one giant city (tokyo). A large portion of the landmass it is still rural (lots of rice farms). Its just the few big cities is where everyone lives.

Size does matter

USA = huge country

Japan = small country

Deploying costs for such a technology are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay, waaaaaaaaaay higher in here if compared to the investment needed to do that in a small territory like Japan's.

said by DocWonder:

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well Japanese land mass is alot smaller than the United States... Implementing dsl and fiber over the vast expanse of the united states would be very expensive.

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That's assuming you have one company doing it... If the Bells took care of the their on territory, the cost would be spread out.

And I'm still amazed that the Bells haven't realized it, but fibre infrastructure is much cheaper to maintain than copper once its built.

HDTV sucks here, as for getting together they standard is way low, and may get even worse from what I have been hearing from the Magazines.

Very lame.

No deal here, problem you don't see is that Fiber opens you to a new way of doing things. Bells don't want this, once you have fiber phones are totally obsolete, and so are cable channels 2 industry that can't be protected, for me give me 100 Mbps and I drop cable and phone so even if I was paying lets say 60 or 70 dollars it be worth it.

But then Gov would not easily control us or keep us in check.

said by cao1964:

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No deal here, problem you don't see is that Fiber opens you to a new way of doing things. Bells don't want this, once you have fiber phones are totally obsolete...

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Not so. The Bell's need to realize that if they are going to survive, they need to switch from providing dial tone to just being a carrier neutral bit provider. With IP telephony and Video over IP, the Bells role should simply be as the network provider.

uhm..i always hear about how big the US is compared to Japan, but i never hear that they have all japan cover with fiber, probably just the big cities, how come we don't see that in the US, there's no much difference between NY and Tokyo

said by devil24:

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Size does matter

USA = huge country

Japan = small country

Deploying costs for such a technology are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay, waaaaaaaaaay higher in here if compared to the investment needed to do that in a small territory like Japan's.

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Size is only one issue. Population density is the other. In Japan, if I, as a telco, run one conduit for 20 miles, I can probably serve thousands to hundreds of thousands of people. In a state like Montana, that 20 mile conduit could server as few as two people. Where's your return on investment? Only way to make that 20 mile run worth it to the provider is to charge HUGE fees. Most people aren't going to pay that.

-tom

said by nixen:

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Size is only one issue. Population density is the other. In Japan, if I, as a telco, run one conduit for 20 miles, I can probably serve thousands to hundreds of thousands of people. In a state like Montana, that 20 mile conduit could server as few as two people. Where's your return on investment? Only way to make that 20 mile run worth it to the provider is to charge HUGE fees. Most people aren't going to pay that.
-tom

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Hmmm right, lets compare Japan's broadband rollout to a major metro area to our most scarcely populated regions. They probably have a piece of fiber feeding some hermit in Mount Fuji. Please... From the article headline:

quote:

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According to this Japan Times report, some users in the country can receive 100Mbps fiber for around 4500 Yen ($41).

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So obviously this is not available to the entire population on Japan and most likely only available on the big metro areas. Unlike some would like you to believe, Japan is not a huge concrete jungle with thousands of ppl stacked on top of each other everywhere you go. They have vast rural areas that most likely have the same broadband issues than in the US, although it could be the entirely opposite and they could also be enjoying some form of broadband connection at reasonable prices compared to here seeing how they think proactively, unlike here in the US.

And your lopsided argument doesn't explain why our densely populated areas are lacking these broadband options at reasonable prices.

said by jhboricua:

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And your lopsided argument doesn't explain why our densely populated areas are lacking these broadband options at reasonable prices.

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Why? Because mixing infrastructure technologies is usually to be avoided. The less different things you have rolled out: the less specialties you have to have in your employ and the less different types of sparing you have to do. The US economy is built on economies of scale.

-tom

They should go the way the natural gas companies did here several years ago. Split the company into a supplier company and a delivery company. The delivery company owns the pipes, the supplier sells the gas. So it does not matter what suppier you go with, the delivery charge is the same and you have your choice and the lines become open to competition.

G

I might me wrong, so ignore me if I am. I think it is cheaper to deploy in a smaller country. Remeber Japan is smaller then California. Becuase of that and the fact that 600 people live in the same space as my "small" apartment (number is off but it gets the point across) the cost can be easyly distributed across several people. For instance (math to help you understand) here in america inorder to service 10,000 famlies we would need to lay fiber across 60 miles in a metro area and over 500 miles out away from town. But in a small country 10,000 famlies could fit in a 5 mile space (again number is probally wrong, i know it is dense over there but no clue as to accual numbers) Not to mention that most homes in the us are single family homes or apartmentes occupying a single floor. Where in japann I know that most homes are apartment style and stacked several stories tall. "Last Mile Fiber" overe here means that. But if you were to have a bulding with 100 floors and 10 apartments on each floor that 1000 people and u only have to bring fiber into that building that use cable or standard ethernet cable to get the data to indvidual apartments. If we (here in america) could say to a telco that we have 1000 people ready to share a sindle 1gbit connection (which you could market as a 100mbit connection) they would go out of the way to put it in. And probally charge only $50 a month (50 * 1000 = 50,000 a month) It wouldn;t take long to recover the cost of putting it in. As a matter of fact many several story condos here do ahve huge internet connections, but the multi-story condo buildings only have 1 condo per floor, not to mention that they are few and far between. It makes sense that we would have slower connections. Putting in all that fiber just so 10 people can use it (belive it or not many people will go with a dial up connection, or worse DSL (200k down) because it is cheaper)

And just to mention are local high speed provider does offer a 100mbit connection they even offer 1gbit and more but the cost to have it brought to you is extreamly high. The monthly costs arn't much though I have a 3mbit connectiong for ~60 a month (downstream is 1mbit)

Just to restat my point, It does happen here in america but for now mostly just for bussniess and metro ares. Just remeber that NO-ONE has gone and put any high speed solution out away from town. If you don;t live in town you use satlite or dialup.

Please excuse my spelling

said by nixen:

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Why? Because mixing infrastructure technologies is usually to be avoided. The less different things you have rolled out: the less specialties you have to have in your employ and the less different types of sparing you have to do. The US economy is built on economies of scale.
-tom

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More like economies of profit-maximization. I'd be willing to bet that most of the telcos won't even *think* about rolling out a complete fiber plant to homes, until they've maximized the profit-return on their existing copper plant upgrade investments (DSL, etc). For them, it has less to do with "cool" tech, and more to do with amortization costs of legacy infrastructure. I don't think that it has anything to do with mixing infrastructure technology, per se. I mean they already run fiber backbones for long-haul purposes, they obviously had to have the fiber know-how onboard in the company in order to do that.

said by neftv:

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why can't companies work together to develop a broadband technology to overcome cost and distance problems?
We did it with HDTV.

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Couple of things to think about with the above:

•television, HDTV or otherwise, is a medium that requires no laying of cable. All you have to do is have a broadcast source and a receiver capable of interpreting the signal
•not every place can receive broadcast TV signals very well or at all
•cable television still isn't universally deployed. What makes you think that broadband would be?

-tom