The NYT Compares Broadband Upgrade Costs in US, Japan
zxjio writes with this excerpt from a New York Times article about just how much networking infrastructure costs vary between the US and Japan: “Pretty much the fastest consumer broadband in the world is the 160-megabit-per-second service offered by J:Com, the largest cable company in Japan. Here’s how much the company had to invest to upgrade its network to provide that speed: per home passed. … Verizon is spending an average of 7 per home passed to wire neighborhoods for its FiOS fiber optic network and another 6 for equipment and labor in each home that subscribes, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. … The experience in Japan suggests that the major cable systems in the United States might be able to increase the speed of their broadband service by five to 10 times right away. They might not need to charge much more for it than they do now and they would still make as much money.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
