IP: Net Connection of 1Gbps Line is Coming to Condos in Japan

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

January 3, 2001 (TOKYO) -- Internet connections for condominiums in Japan 
are finally realizing a speed of 1Gbps.

"New Tokyo Project 'Newton Place'" is a group of condominiums located in 
the Koto ward in Tokyo. It has been jointly developed by five companies -- 
Yuraku Real Estate Co., Ltd., Toray Construction, Shin-Nihon Tatemono Co., 
Ltd., Nichimo Corp., and Nissho Iwai Real Estate Corp. The project details 
were publicly announced on Nov. 18, and a 1Gbps line is to be a lead-in as 
the Internet connection for the residents.

"We thought it would be essential for a building consisting of 989 condos 
with Internet connections to accommodate a 1Gbps line for the residents to 
enjoy their lives," a spokesperson for Nissho Iwai said. POWEREDCOM's 
Ethernet connecting service will be used. Optical fiber cables will be 
directly fed into POWEREDCOM data center, and will be connected in a 
substantially big backbone.

The completion of the Newton Place is scheduled for February 2003, and 
POWEREDCOM does not even have the Ethernet connection service on its 
current service list. However, the developers have drawn an aggressive 
blueprint to offer more convenient Internet settings for the residents upon 
the completion of the project.

According to the developers, the project proposal for the Internet service 
was bid for by 14 competitors. The winner was Nissho Iwai Real Estate, 
which proposed the 1Gbps Internet connection service. Nissho was evaluated 
for its experience as an Internet provider, as well as its work results 
leading to 100Mbps building services in two condominium buildings in Yokohama.
"We consider a high-speed and steady Internet connection a necessary 
infrastructure these days. And our service is free-of-charge," the Nissho 
Iwai spokesperson said. Some questionnaires given to the residents living 
in the existing condos showed "free Internet connection service plus 
100Mbps high-speed Internet" is favored as a basic specification for 
condominium buildings, second to "spacious floor plan," "price," and 
"peripheral conditions." This result is a vital force for projects such as 
Newton Place.

Symantec Corp.'s antivirus product will be installed in the project's 
server to assure safety for the users. The data center and the condominiums 
will be connected via the Ethernet to reduce the communications cost.

The wiring within the buildings will be 100Mbps in the initial stage. 
However, the material for the lines is "Enhanced Category 5" to leave a 
room for future expansion of the 1Gbps service. The service will fully 
exploit the high-speed infrastructure within the building, and Web cameras 
will be used as monitoring cameras within the premises. If there is a 
request from a resident and the managing union agrees, the resident will be 
able to check the safety of their apartment and their families when they 
are away from the condos.

Previously, many of Japan's so-called "Internet condominiums" adopted 
dedicated lines of 1.5Mbps to 10Mbps to be shared by some hundreds of 
residents. There is even an unbelievable case of a 1.5Mbps line shared by 
800 households. Compared with those previous cases, the 1Gbps connection 
service is quite attractive.

Still, there is an opposite opinion saying, "Generally people use the 
Internet only for the e-mails, so 64kbps will be enough." However, without 
enough room, communication efficiency will be severely damaged in case of 
an emergency.

Even though the volume of communications is usually not fully occupied, 
adequate speed must be assured when a large number of residents access the 
Internet simultaneously. The "adequate speed" will of course depend on the 
individual's purpose of use and attitude for the Internet, but nowadays at 
least 1Mbps will be considered necessary per user. And 10 times more volume 
will possibly be needed in several years.

In the real estate industry, there have been old ideas about the Internet 
environment. It might not be easy to incorporate the Internet into the 
initial stage of a project that takes some years from designing to the 
completion. However, projects like Newton Place will change the old ideas 
for the better.
(Nobuo Hayashi, Executive Editor, PC Group) 

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