Japan's Warp-Speed Ride to Internet Future

[Jared Moya]

Americans invented the Internet, but the Japanese are running away with it.

Broadband service here is eight to 30 times as fast as in the United States -- and considerably cheaper. Japan has the world's fastest Internet connections, delivering more data at a lower cost than anywhere else, recent studies show.


Accelerating broadband speed in this country -- as well as in South Korea and much of Europe -- is pushing open doors to Internet innovation that are likely to remain closed for years to come in much of the United States.
The speed advantage allows the Japanese to watch broadcast-quality, full-screen television over the Internet, an experience that mocks the grainy, wallet-size images Americans endure.

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[enter8]

61 mpbs median DL?!?! Wow... The big question, though, is what's the median UPLOAD?

Come on Washington Post, get with times- Download Schmownload.

[mountain_rage]

You can't totally blame North America for the slow growth. It is true that we could be expanding faster then we are but you have to take into consideration that North America has vast empty spaces that highly increase the cost of broadband infrastructure. I bet the km/person ratio of lines bought in North America compared to Japan is much greater.

[fangoria]

The weird thing about the Japanese is that with all that DL speed that most us Americans could only dream of, not many of them seem to file share. According to statistics given by RIAA Japan themselves, only about 3 to 4% of Japanese file share. So what are the Japanese doing with all that speed? Email?

[techforce]

yes email and the occasional youtube video is my guess because there definitely not seeding or leeching

[GuyFawks]

And thats why we all get cheap seedboxes in japan...

[meyou123]

Seems a waste.....all that speed just to check email and surf!??

I can do that on dialup!

[C-day]

They have a lot of video sreaming stuffs, not just crappy youtube.:icon_thum

Plus on-line gaming is very, very popular there.