Monday, November 29, 2004
Crazy internet speeds in Japan...
Wow, this is amazing. Aparantly 100mbit internet connections on fibre are availible in some parts of Japan, with that speed for upload as well! 100mbit/8bit=12.5megabytes a second, or a full CD-ROM in about a minute or so. And that's for somewhere around $50-60US a month, not much more than cable here. And even for their cheaper DSL, it is around 12mbit download and 1mbit upload. For DSL through Verizon in this area (at $30 a month!), it is just 1.5mbit download and 380kbit upload.
Not only that, according to this, people in Japan will start getting 1gbit access in some areas, with 10gbit to follow by 2010. Most ethernet cards are only 1gbit and hard drive writing even slower than that. You could split the connection between two computers and still write to your drive as fast as physically possible...
This is really crazy territory. If you think stuff like movie piracy is prevalant now, wait until everyone can get full quality video at faster than real-time. It is already happening in Japan... Of course, there are big ramifications in the legal realm as well. That would finally open the door for streaming movie rentals to be practical over the internet (I've heard it is already popular in places like Korea). Having a fast upload connection also makes hosting your own website a reality, even for relatively high-bandwith sites. It really just changes everything...
Oh well, I'll be happy when I finally get DSL at home, which should hopefully be in a month or two at the most. That'll make a lot of things much easier to deal with. :)
Not only that, according to this, people in Japan will start getting 1gbit access in some areas, with 10gbit to follow by 2010. Most ethernet cards are only 1gbit and hard drive writing even slower than that. You could split the connection between two computers and still write to your drive as fast as physically possible...
This is really crazy territory. If you think stuff like movie piracy is prevalant now, wait until everyone can get full quality video at faster than real-time. It is already happening in Japan... Of course, there are big ramifications in the legal realm as well. That would finally open the door for streaming movie rentals to be practical over the internet (I've heard it is already popular in places like Korea). Having a fast upload connection also makes hosting your own website a reality, even for relatively high-bandwith sites. It really just changes everything...
Oh well, I'll be happy when I finally get DSL at home, which should hopefully be in a month or two at the most. That'll make a lot of things much easier to deal with. :)
