Too-Much-TV

More Softbank, more broadband

More from the Nikkei (February 13) about Softbank; they are targeting 6 million DSL customers by September 2005. Means they will need to gain around 110,000/month from now for the next 20 months. Softbank also said it plans to spend more on sales promotion.

About the broadband outlook generally, fiber subscribers have been growing gradually, and cable subscribers increasingly reasonably steadily. If Softbank's correct in their estimates, I think we can expect to see between 300,000/350,000 new broadband subscribers / month for the rest of this year and most of next.

eAccess remains the number 3 provider with 1.29 million subscribers, behind the NTT group and Yahoo!BB (Softbank). Launched a new 40Mbps service last October that has been popular. Availability is good:

(source: "Financial report for the mid-year period from April 1, 2003 to September 30, 2003" URL http://www.eaccess.net/ir/pdf/semi-annual-report_9-30-2003_final.pdf (Japanese))

Customers more than 2Km from the exchange getting better than 12Mbps. Basic monthly fee is ¥2,880, which I think makes it the cheapest DSL bandwidth anywhere in the world. Last quarter, eAccess revised their earning forecast upward by ¥0.5 billion to ¥1.5 billion for the full 2003 financial year. Higher network utilization resulted in significant decreases in backbone costs per subscriber and lower capex and depreciation.

Softbank, losses as broadband grows

Total number of DSL subscribers in Japan at the end of January was 10,612,671, up 340,619 from December.

Softbank issued quarterly results last week. The Nikkei reported the figures as a ¥93.68 billion net loss in the 9 months ending December 31, 2003. The Internet division was responsible for losses of ¥6.65 billion in the quarter ending December 31, ¥15.16 billion in the quarter ending September, and ¥24.20 billion in the quarter ending June. Total of -¥46.01 billion in the 3 quarters.

Yahoo!BB had 3.81 million subscribers at the end of January, up 122,000 from December. The NTT group 3,871,895 DSL subscribers, up just under 98,000 on December. Expensive catch-up.

Softbank gave the main reason for the losses as Yahoo!BB's spending on promoting its services, a lot of introductory free offers and "specials". (The sidewalk stall was back in my neighbourhood last weekend. 2 people standing around on a street corner for a Saturday asking people to sign up for DSL, VoIP and some content services.)

MPHPT, outline of telecoms in Japan (report)

New telecoms "Yellow Book" (1.4 mb) has been published

MPHPT describes the report as:

"Outline of the Telecommunications Business in Japan -- February 2004
This document describes the current situation surrounding the telecommunications business, including the competition policy trend in Japan, with a focus on statistical data (such as communication charges, diffusion of the Internet, and mobile communications) and it is updated every two months in principal."

I want sound

large files.

http://www.avweb.com/newspics/DavisTbirdEject.jpg (image over 2mb)

http://www.avweb.com/newspics/TBirdchute1.jpg

http://www.avweb.com/newspics/tbirdcrash.mpg

Shame there's no sound on that video!

(Pilot escaped with minor injuries, no one on the ground hurt)

ITU -- case study on mobile in Japan

Couple of very good reports from the ITU prepared for their the future of mobile workshop to be held in Seoul, March 4-5, Shaping the future mobile information society.

A case study of Japan, and a background paper "Social and Human Considerations for a More Mobile World".

Lara Srivastava, the author/co-author of the two papers, and ITU staff leading the Future of Mobile project, spoke at an event we held during the WSIS Summit in Geneva last December. All the presentations from that event are on the WSIS Online site Cultural and social impacts of mobile technologies.

I will soon have some notes or transcripts from the session online.