Japan ranks second in global broadband uptake: survey
July 2, 2003
Reuters
Japan, once an Internet laggard, leapfrogged to second place in the world in terms of broadband Internet
connections in 2002, a research report showed on Tuesday, with competition bringing access fees down
and spurring demand.
Japan had 14.85 million broadband Internet home users at the end of 2002, second only to the US, which
had 18.5 million users, said Internet-publisher Impress Corp in its "Internet White Paper 2003."
Japan was a slow starter in the Internet revolution of the 1990s due to high fixed-line charges and a lack
of competition in its telecoms market, long ruled by the former state-owned monopoly NTT.
But in the past year broadband use has taken off thanks in part to the success of Softbank Corp's Yahoo
BB ADSL business.
Japan's broadband population was higher than the rest of Asia combined, and increased five-fold on the
previous year, when Japan had languished in fourth place behind the US, Europe, and ex-Japan Asia,
with just 2.98 million users, Impress said.
With aggressive marketing and cut-rate pricing, Yahoo BB has challenged NTT, Japan's biggest telecoms
company, to become the nation's largest broadband provider with 2.36 million users as of March.
Just under 40% of Japanese Internet users had broadband connections as of February 2003, around
double the figure for the previous year, Impress said.
Around 60% of these connections were ADSL, while fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) connections, which offer
faster transmission speeds but at a greater cost, held less than 5% of the broadband market.
Analysts say the price war sparked by Softbank's entry into the market in September 2001 helped spur
demand.
The lowest monthly charge for unlimited ADSL service in Japan dropped to 2,400 yen ($20.05), from
around 4,800 yen before Softbank's entry into the ADSL market, said a recent report by the International
Telecommunication Union.
Relative to income levels Japan's broadband access charges are the cheapest in the world, the ITU said.
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