Well worth reading and asking -- why not here? -- A Personal Account: FTTH in Japan

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Naoki Yamamoto <naoki () matatabi com>
Organization: Matatabi.com Inc.
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 01:00:50 +0900
To: dave () farber net
Subject: A Personal Account: FTTH in Japan


[I have NTT East B FLET'S New-Family service (100Mbps optical fiber
service) at home for four months. According to NIKKEI story this week,
NTT East will cut the B FLET'S fee by 1,000 yen in March. As a result,
FTTH will be available for around U.S.$50 a month in Japan. It means
that NTT now offers FTTH at a price that gives some competition with
ADSL. NTT has big investment in optical fiber infrastructure, and its
strategy for broadband is to let the users leap directly to the
fiber. The FTTH subscribers in Japan were 206,000 at the end of
2002. They were only 9,000 a year ago.--Naoki]

I had ADSL for a year and a half when I heard that NTT's optical fiber
service was available soon in my neighborhood. I live in the suburb of
Yokohama, 30 miles south of Tokyo. My house was more than 3.2km (2
miles) away from the local exchange and the ADSL line( 8Mbps Service)
connected only at 600kbps(down). So, it was a relatively easy decision
my switching to FTTH although there was a 30,000 yen(U.S.$250)
installation fee and my monthly fee would increase by 3000 yen
(U.S.$25).

I waited for 3 weeks for the installation. Three NTT contract workers
came to my place. One worked outside from a cherry picker getting the
fiber line from a telephone pole to the wall just outside of the room
where I wanted to install the ONU(Optical Network Unit), the second
guy installed ONU in the room, and the other guy controlled the
traffic in front of the house. A tiny hole was drilled in the wall and
the fiber cable was pulled into the room and was connected to the ONU.

Drilling a hole seems the biggest obstacle installing FTTH. Unless you
have a duct for air-conditioning or some other pipes coming into the
room from the wall outside, a small hole must be made.  If you live in
a condo or an apartment, your landlord (or the tenants union) often
won't allow drilling of a hole.

The NTT installation was completed in just over an hour without a
hitch. They tested the line, got my signature, and left. I removed the
Ethernet cable from ADSL modem and inserted it in ONU. I made some
changes in the configuration of my router and I was on the net
again. The whole process was a lot easier than I expected.

Here's a breakdown of my FTTH bill:

One time fee    installation           27,100 yen

Monthly fee    basic subscription    5,800 yen (4,800 in March)
        inside wiring          200 yen
        ONU rental          900 yen

Monthly Total (including 5% consumption tax )   7,245 yen (U.S. $60)*

    *I pay additional U.S. $25 to my ISP. You have to choose an
     ISP that supports FLET'S to surf the Internet. NTT East gives
     you just a connection to the NTT's regional (prefectural) IP
     network and your ISP takes over from there to the
     Internet. The lowest price ISP that I find for the B FLET'S is
     500 yen (without using any limited time promotion
     programs.). There are currently several ISPs gives you free
     services for up to several months with a long term contract.


My monthly Internet connection fee increased by 3,000 yen ($25) a
month when I switched to FTTH from ADSL. Can I justify $25? So far, I
think so. I'm currently getting 50Mbps(down) and 25Mbps(up). In the
New-Family program, I share the bandwidth with up to 32 users. The
service has been excellent. There has been no unannounced
downtime. The dynamic IP assigned by the ISP remains the same for a few
weeks. The faster upload saves time when I maintain the web site and I
have no trouble sending a big files such as CD images to clients.

For non-business user, I suspect currently there is a few applications
and contents that take advantage of the high speed connection. It is
nice to watch movie trailers at 500 kbps and simultaneously to
download files though. According to a recent survey conducted by
Mitsubishi Research Institute and NTT-X (which runs a portal site),
more than 80% of FTTH users currently don't buy pay services such as
movie and music download. Less than 10% pay for the contents every
month. Those who pay spend an average of 1,545 yen a month. It is
true that there is a few good broadband contents available today, but
the survey suggests that the FTTH users still don't pay for contents.

In my experience, FTTH won't speed up loading web pages much. If the
FTTH users don't buy movies and music, what are they doing with their
ultra high speed connection? The survey did not ask about the use of
P2P. From what I hear from some FTTH users, it seems some of the heavy
users get the fiber for file exchange and sharing. A new P2P program
called Winny is popular among them. Winny is being developed by an
anonymous programmer. The author got the idea of Winny from Freenet,
but made almost everything encrypted including filenames, files and
cache. Since there is only Japanese version, the program has not
spread beyond Japan. Although JASRAC (ASCAP of Japan) won't be quiet
for too long, Winny and the other new generation of P2P programs are
likely to fuel the early FTTH growth in Japan.


NTT B FLET'S New Family Press Release(English)
http://www.ntt-east.co.jp/release_e/0204/020411c.html

FTTH User Survey Press Release (Japanese)
Mitsubishi Research Institute Inc.
http://www.mri.co.jp/NEWS/2003/pr03012010.html

--
Naoki Yamamoto <naoki () matatabi com> in Yokohama, Japan
Matatabi Report:Japan Tech News Digest <http://www.matatabi.com>
Gpg Fingerprint = B2A7 2A11 C50B DCC4 83EB  9311 607A FAE9 386B F070
Public Key available from <http://www.matatabi.com/naoki_pubkey.html>


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