Jump to content
Logo

Japan offers one gigabit per second broadband

For £30 a month
Monday, 29 September 2008, 09:33

IF YOU EVER GET TIRED of the 8Mbps broadband connection offered in most of the UK you might want to consider a shift to the Land of the Rising Sun.

Cable outfit KDDI has just launched a fibre-optic communications service with upload and download speeds each of up to one gigabit per second.

The new service will target people living in single-family homes and low-rise flats. Japanese broadband speeds are famously fast with 100 megabits per second being the norm.

The new service is a bit of a catch-up for KDDI which is behind Nippon Telegraph & Telephone, which has a share of over 70 per cent in the market for fiber-optic broadband services for single-family houses.

KDDI will charge 5,985 yen (or 30 of your British pounds) in basic monthly fees for Internet and telephone services. µ

L'Inq
Japan Today

Share this:

Comments
Indonesia when you catch up?

I wonder how many years needed for Indonesia people to get this state of the art Internet broadband speed? Hopefuly soon enough.

posted by : Hok, 29 September 2008Complain about this comment
why can't they do that here also?

1. because here, cabling is seen as something that always has to be buried underground, so like any vital home/business service it requires mass noise-pollution and disturbance to maintain and install, and means talentless a-hole fly-by-night 'workers' can parasitise a living from the misery caused 2. for some reason here also, phone lines, specifically party-line style phone lines, are seen as the one real option for secure wired lines. Oh except cable, which is a monopoly. So your choice is between three monopolies - BT lines, cable lines (Virgin), and Sky. Want mobile, um that seems to require a phone too for some reason.

posted by : NO I don't want a phone or TV with that, 29 September 2008Complain about this comment
.

Sweden already offered this for like 2 years ago..

posted by : Dan, 29 September 2008Complain about this comment
The move.

Chavs, Prescott and capped 8mbit broadband.. Who's off to japan with me.

posted by : Mnemica, 29 September 2008Complain about this comment
Cap?

I wonder what their 'fair use' limit is on downloading per month? 3GB which would be about 10 secs worth at that speed!

posted by : Stuart Halliday, 29 September 2008Complain about this comment
Green Eyed Monster

I think its a good day if I get 1.5mb :( competebunchofarse.

posted by : Mark, 29 September 2008Complain about this comment
HoHum

I ought to use this as leverage when I order FiOS. Not that it'll help. Maybe some day our (the US) government will stop getting bought out long enough to enforce a real broadband plan.

posted by : K2k7, 29 September 2008Complain about this comment
What ?!?

1 GB/s up AND down ?!?! I'm speechless. <thud>

posted by : Pascal Monett, 29 September 2008Complain about this comment
Sweden aswell.

1gb has been available in ~10 cities in Sweden for over a year.

posted by : Robert Foss, 29 September 2008Complain about this comment
What a steal!

I'm paying that same amount to CockCast right now for a measly 4-6Mbps. That's what a virtual monopoly does Senator, no It doesn't increase competitiveness, lower prices and give incentive to lay out fiber cables, where did you hear that? Oh AT&T and Comcast told you? Mkay... An interesting story on how AT&T and others conned the US government out of billions for a fiber optic internet plan that never happened. Where's the money? More importantly where's the accountability? http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Ask_this.view&askthisid=186

posted by : Pixelated, 29 September 2008Complain about this comment
comcast!!

american companies get away with instituting bandwidth caps on their pathetic offerings. this proves their complaints are really nonsense.

posted by : terisam, 29 September 2008Complain about this comment
GigaBIT?

I REALLY wish companies would measure broadband speeds in bytes, instead of bits. 1024 / 8 = 128 MB per second. That's so much easier to follow.

posted by : Mark Jones, 30 September 2008Complain about this comment
@ 'Cap?'

@ comment number 4... '3 GB ... in like 10 seconds' Or, 3 GB in 3 seconds.. given the title of the article is '... one gigabit per second ...' lol :p

posted by : Fruitcake, 30 September 2008Complain about this comment
Sweden's Connection isnt the same

Swedens connection is far inferior compared to this japenese counterpart as i live in Stockholm which is the capital, and the 1Gbit is only available in some areas. sorry for my crappy english.

posted by : Leetlargo, 30 September 2008Complain about this comment
there are slower connections yet

In Colombia (Latin America) the regular speed is between 0,5M and 1M... and we say WOW!!!

posted by : Javier Mena, 27 October 2008Complain about this comment
Advertisement
Subscribe to the INQ Newsletter
Sign-up for the INQBot weekly newsletter
Click here to sign up Existing user
Advertisement
INQ Poll

Consumer Electronics Show

CES 2009 shrinks through lack of interest