Subscribers to fiber-optic network service top 7 million

I remember translating rosy prognostications for this "fiber to the curb" stuff back in '99-ish.

Infrastructure sure moves slowly, even in Japan. I think secure, broadband wireless has stolen much thunder from this and from fantastic inventions like Asahi's plastic FOC.

 

Broadband wireless is insanely slow compared to fiber, even with the newer WiMax etc. But I am more interested in your other comment - Asahi's plastic what?

 

Check out this news:
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/product/1159

and this product:
http://panasonic.co.jp/pcc/products/plc/

it allows to connect to the Internet through your electric socket and get 170MB/sec broadband

 

Yeah, fiber's faster but so's a top fuel dragster over a Honda. Which do we have more of?

WiFi's plenty fast when coupled with the fact that the only infrastructure necessary for it are new line-of-sight repeater towers. No concrete has to be cracked or new cable laid.

Circa 2000 Asahi was testing a polymer optic fiber (POF) material that appeared to be on the cusp of initiating a Fiber-To-The-Home revolution (FTTH... both acronyms from J-tech press).

If I can find my old docs about it I'll post back.

 

Intesting - thanks. I have fiber to our apartment building here in Tokyo and a supposed 100M to our place via VDSL (the usual thing for buildings). I have wireless inside the house for the laptop, xbox 360 and the Wii. It works, but streaming video to the xbox works much better with cable...
I guess for web surfing, wireless is fine, and easy to set up, but I download a *lot* so I need a lot of bandwidth.

 

PLC is only for home dirstribution, the uplink line you will still need, e.g. ADSL, Fiber is better..
The PLC devices set up with encription so only they can talk amongst themselves, and there is usual limit only enough SNR for use within one home. There is also a frequency mask determined by some authority which must be adherred to..

170mbpsis only the theoretical limit. Electric noise and interference from other electrical appliance in the home can reduce that dramatically. e.g. fridge and stuff..

 

I've upgraded to fiber optics as soon as they become available in my area.
I still cannot see decent video news from US web sites (like cbsnews.com) a mere 300k.
The guy at NTT that made the contract told me it supposed to be 100M (yeah right!)

 

Then it's not a problem at your end. 300k from a US site is good. My NTT fiber "100M" service speed tests at 34M, and that, is hot $hit...