One of the benefits of participating in an emailgroup on next generation networks (Cook's List) is that you meet interesting people. This morning Tim Poulus and myself had a great chat with Adam Peake, Associate Professor at the International University of Japan, exchanging information on the developments in Japan and the Netherlands.
Japan is the frontrunner in deploying fiber, there are more fiber connections than VDSL connections (the latter are even dropping in numbers). The plan is to have very high speed broadband everywhere in a couple of years, aka the ubiquitous deployment of fiber-to-the-home. So already the strategic process has been started: what's next? How can Japan leverage the infrastucture to develop new skills and exportable services/products? Already products like TV's all have an Ethernet RJ-45 connector, and are specified for a given minimal bandwidth.
Fiber is deployed by several companies. NTT is by far the biggest (over 75%), but some utility companies have done the same. NTT is continuing deployment, the utility companies seem to have slowed down or even sold their networks. They are competing where their footprint overlaps, but that happens rarely, and only in bigger cities. (Cable networks are fast (Docsis 3.0), cheap and seen as reliable, but they have a minor footprint and do not expand)
NTT is the only one expanding outside the main cities, interestingly enough often in cooperation with districts and municipalities.
The architecture of the fiber network is shared, a PON-network. (a feeder fiber is distributed near the homes by optical splitters into individual fibers, the electronics do a time-division-multiplex to give each user his own Internet.)
To my surprise a different operator can rent fibers from NTT, for 5000 Yen (Eur 38) per month per 8 users. Why per 8? The PON network is first split in 4 fibers, afterwards each fiber again in 8, giving a total of (industry standard) 1:32 split. This way a relatively low level of granularity is achieved, allowing for a sort of unbundling Japanese style.
In reality operators compete for buildings, for multidwelling units. As a building you choose for an operator. In advertisements for apartments it is normal that the seller specifices which operator supplies the Internet connection, next to other services that are supplied.
I wonder how long it will take before we see in real-estate ads in the Netherlands "fiber connected"....
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