Broadband in Japan

Thomas Friedman’s latest column is about how broadband and cell phone based internet access is superior to that of Japan. OK, no arguments there. But what about the Thomas Bleha report in Foreign Affairs that he cites?

In the administration’s first three years, President Bush barely uttered the word “broadband,” Mr. Bleha notes, but when America “dropped the Internet leadership baton, Japan picked it up. In 2001, Japan was well behind the United States in the broadband race. But thanks to top-level political leadership and ambitious goals, it soon began to move ahead.

It is now clear that Japan and its neighbors will lead the charge in high-speed broadband over the next several years.”

South Korea, which has the world’s greatest percentage of broadband users, and urban China, which last year surpassed the U.S. in the number of broadband users, are keeping pace with Japan – not us.

Does the Japanese government actually have any policy to support broadband? I had always gotten the impression that the broadband growth in Japan was entirely due to strenuous efforts by KDDI and Softbank/Yahoo BB, efforts that were originally opposed by the state sponsored Japan Telecom until they realized that they too must sell broadband to survive. Until a couple of years ago Japan had a reputation for being far, far behind Korea in terrestrial internet connections, with many people apparently content to just access their email and tiny web sites from their mobile phones. So the question is, does anybody reading this know whether this alleged pro-broadband government policy in Japan even exists?