-7 million ISDN home users? This still is a surprisingly high figure and I couldn't find it referenced in any of the urls.
My apologies....I forgot to give a link. Here is the full article....it is from a pay site that is sort of the Japanese equivalent to the WSJ.
I really am a slacker....I just seem to have this compulsive need to track mobile phone statistics, so I run across a ton of articles on broadband (especially in Japan/Korea). I think you might understand ;-).
nni.nikkei.co.jp
Thursday, August 10, 2000
NTT Comm, Covad To Offer DSL Phone Service In Japan
LOS ALTOS, Calif. (Nikkei)--NTT Communications Corp. will team up with U.S. firm Covad Communications Co. to provide high-speed DSL (digital subscriber line) Internet service in Japan's major cities, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun has learned.
NTT Communications and Covad will both invest 1.25 billion yen in a Tokyo start-up that offers high-speed communications services, giving each of the partners a 41.8% stake in the company. In addition to the capital it will receive, the start-up, founded in March, will benefit from technical support from both firms.
DSL technology utilizes existing telephone lines to provide high-speed Internet connections. The start-up will commence trial service in Tokyo in September, with the aim of providing commercial DSL service in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya as early as the end of the year. The service will be expanded to all other major metropolitan regions throughout Japan in 2001.
The companies may offer the DSL service for a flat fee as low as 4,000 yen per month, which would be less than the 4,500 yen others charge for ISDN (integrated services digital network) service, a rival technology. They are shooting for revenue of 40-50 billion yen from 500,000 subscribers after three years.
ISDN services are now provided by the east and west regional units of the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (9432) group. They have some 7 million households signed on to the service.
(The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Thursday morning edition) |
