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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: elmatador who wrote (8116)	8/21/2000 3:13:16 PM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

The money (for FTTH) was part of a 16 trillion yen stimulus package, intended to re-ignite the moribund Japanese economy Japanese Telecoms Sector Set To Reap $30 Billion Boost From National Fiber Plan By Jeremy Scott-Joynt 09 April 1998 Japan is to accelerate its program of wiring every home in the country with fiber optic cable as part of a public works program worth 1.8 trillion yen ($13.8 billion). According to Japanese newspapers the pump-priming effect of the investment could boost national telecoms spending overall by up to 4 trillion yen ($30.7 billion). The money forms part of a 16 trillion yen stimulus package, intended to re-ignite the moribund Japanese economy which - according to the chairman of Sony, Norio Ohga - is in dire danger of lapsing into recession. Out of the 1.8 trillion yen allocated to telecoms 800 billion yen ($6.1 billion) will be spent on advancing a joint Ministry of Posts and Telecoms-NTT plan called Fiber To The Home (FTTH). The FTTH project, based on technology developed by NTT, aims to have an optical line going into each dwelling and office, carrying both future data and multimedia needs and existing telephony via splitters both at the home and at the exchange. Although the project is intended to be finished by 2010, the new investment should accelerate the timescale. The technology underlying NTT's FTTH plans is currently under review by the International Telecom Union. It has been included in a draft ITU proposal which, if all goes well, will be accepted as an international standard in a plenary in October. The size of the communications segment of the stimulus package, is part of an effort by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to overcome deep cynicism about whether it will work. Similar, if smaller, packages regularly feature in Japanese budgets, but have often been criticized for lavishing money on constructing under-used bridges and motorways, thanks to lobbying from the powerful construction industry and lawmakers in need of pork-barrel projects for their constituency. This time, according to prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, the package will concentrate on projects of concrete use to the country such as communications, helping to cure the enormous bad debt hanging over Japanese corporations and banks, and funding initiatives to create services and infrastructure to cope with Japan's rapidly ageing society. But although the package has met with guarded approval in Japan, not least because it includes 6 trillion yen in tax cuts, the telecoms segment could stir up trouble with the US. The most recent telecoms trade estimates from the US Trade Representative's Office suggested that despite a long-running Framework Agreement renewed, at the last moment, last September, Japan's telecoms procurement policies were still opaque and unfairly weighted in favor of domestic vendors. Pressure from the USTR and other agencies led the FCC to hold back licenses for KDD and NTT to operate in the US for most of last year, and both companies say they still fear interference that could contravene the World Trade Organization's Basic Telecoms Accord. The sudden boost in government-led spending, the bulk of which will go to Japanese firms, could well lead the USTR to resuscitate its complaints about unfair treatment.