by: Brandon Hill
Japan's J:Com provides broadband service upgrades at bargain basement prices
Last week, DailyTech brought you news that Time Warner Cable (TWC) is extending its metered internet service to markets in Austin, San Antonio, Rochester, and Greensboro. TWC is choking customers' monthly bandwidth to 5GB, 10GB, 20GB, and 40GB at prices ranging from $29.95 to $54.95 per month.
The highest priced tier, 40GB/$54.95, offers customers download speeds of 16 Mbps.
Over in Japan, however, customers are seeing download speeds ten times that limit at comparable prices. According to a recent article from the New York Times, J:Com -- Japan's largest cable provider -- is touting its 160 Mbps consumer broadband service. The interesting piece of information to take away is that J:Com's cost to upgrade its systems to handle the 160 Mbps speeds was just $20 per household.
For comparison's sake, Verizon's high-speed FiOS service costs the company $817 per household and an additional $716 for equipment/labor costs per household.
The only piece of equipment that J:Com customers need to take advantage of the higher speeds is an upgraded modem which costs $60, roughly twice that of the standard modem used for slower service plans.
As for internet service pricing, J:Com customers also appear to get a rather sweet deal. The 160 Mbps service only costs $60 USD per month, while the 30 Mbps service is just $55 per month.
When it comes to the United States and sky high pricing for internet service and service upgrades, the finger is pointed at less competition in the marketplace. Broadband internet offers the highest profit margin for cable companies and many providers state that there just isn't much demand for such "super-high speed" internet service.
