10/31/2005

Despite how technologically advanced Japan is famous for being, Japan hadn’t quite embraced the Internet to the same level that the West has, or their close and Internet-crazy neighbour - Korea.

It’s only recently that high-speed internet is being pimped to the Japanese public. It’s hard to tell whether they’e accepting it or not. Broadband sign up booths are to be seen everywhere here. It’s slightly amusing to note that the one booth tries to sell you high speed internet from all the major providers at once. NTT, YahooBB, SoftBankBB - all lined up next to each other and being pimped by one person - makes you wonder about the competition laws.

Two types of broadband are marketed heavily here (dial-up is recommended “for email only”, which would make a lot of Australian dial-up users choke on their modems). ADSL is most common, where the slowest speed in metro Tokyo is 8Mbps (ironically, that’s the highest speed available in Australia) and goes all the way up to 50Mbps.

Then there’s fibre optic cable, which can deliver 100Mbps. I’ve heard of waiting times varying from 3 weeks to 6 months - it seems life is easiest though if you live in an apartment block that is already set up to receive cable.

The super fast speeds and relatively cheap prices (never more than ￥8000 a month, but starting at around ￥3000) may make you warm in the pants, but there is a downside to getting Internet in Japan - the bungling bureaucrats that are meant to get you connected.

Even Australia can boast better ADSL sign up procedures than Japan. 10 days to get your phone line set up (remotely) for ADSL, meanwhile your modem is posted to you with plenty of instructions. Here in Japan, I’ve had to wait 6 weeks, because one stray kanji in my application seemed to confuse them. Why they couldn’t double check against the ID I provided them is beyond me. And when they discovered the problem, why couldn’t they just correct it and continue? No, they had to start the whole application from scratch.

Even if my problem hadn’t arisen, the standard wait is 3 weeks, when a NTT contractor will visit your home, fiddle with the socket for 30 seconds, then leave again. After that, you have to wait for your Internet company to mail you the modem. So in reality, the wait is about 4 weeks.

If your Japanese is scarce, then have a Japanese friend handy to sort out the many problems that could arise, because English support is thin on the ground.

Oh, and you’re getting wireless connections, you’ll need to be a bit tech savvy if you want to keep your wireless connection to yourself. Encryption doesn’t seem to be the norm here. There are many stray wireless connections that you can leech from around metro Tokyo.

Bureaucracy will make you shake with anger on several occassions during your time in Japan, but when it comes to internet, it’s best just to think of the uber fast speeds you’ll have available to you. Oh, and the lack of download limits. Mmm, truly unlimited broadband.