(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
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| NTT to Launch ADSL Service in Summer 1999
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November 5, 1998 (TOKYO) -- Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. will
launch a full-time Internet access service using asymmetric digital
subscriber line (ADSL) technology.
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The service will be a new offering within its Open Computer Network (OCN)
service.
Nikkei Communications was told of the plans by Shogo Yokoi, executive
manager of the OCN Service Division in NTT's Multimedia Network Service
Sector.
NTT is currently conducting ADSL field trials, which began in February
1998 and are scheduled to run through December 1998. The ADSL option
will be incorporated into the OCN service menu according to the results
of the trials. It is expected to begin some time in the summer 1999,
at the earliest.
The charge for the service is undecided at present, but Yokoi indicated
that it will be higher than the 38,000 yen per month charged for the
128kbps OCN Economy service.
"ADSL technology is vulnerable to interference with ISDN lines, so it
is not possible to guarantee stable line quality. As a company, we don't
feel too happy about offering a service if we can't vouch for its quality,"
Yokoi explained.
However, NTT shifted its stance in view of consumer demand. "There's
been a boom in mobile phones and other communication services that don't
necessarily provide stable quality. So we recognized that there is a
need we can definitely meet, even if we cannot give a 100 percent guarantee
of quality," Yokoi said.
The regional provider Shikoku Information and Telecommunication Network
Co., Inc. (STNet) has also announced plans to provide an Internet access
service using xDSL technology. However, the DSL variant that STNet plans
to deploy is symmetric DSL (SDSL) technology. NTT will likely be the
first company in Japan to offer an ADSL service.
The OCN Service Division's pricing plan will probably put the ADSL service
out of reach of most individual subscribers, although low-cost services
may be provided in the future by other Internet service providers that
use NTT's ADSL access lines. What seems certain at present is that ADSL
will debut as a new, low-cost alternative for full-time connection to
the Internet at data rates ranging from a few hundred kbps to 1.5Mbps.
Related stories:
� Japan's First xDSL-Based Internet Service to Start
in March
� NTT Releases First Results of xDSL Field Trials
� NTT Studies Speedy Home Communications Service
(Nikkei
Communications)
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