

Japan's Warp-Speed Ride to Internet Future - bootload
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082801990.html

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staunch
Examples like remote-medical applications are pretty meaningless. High
bandwidth applications for regular users is what will change the world.

I think the result of the US lagging behind is that the rest of the world has
to wait too. Because US-based innovators don't have the connections they don't
create the new applications. Japanese users don't have much use for their
awesome connections now. I know, I have one.

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mhidalgo
While you can't argue that there hasn't been a meaningful web application to
come out of Japan, the article is still pretty upsetting. The stupidity of the
federal government in this country is incredible. As an American I am pretty
pissed off that we are this far behind. It is a pretty upsetting paradox , how
the us is home to amazing innovators despite the stupidity of the federal
government. The state of US infrastructure is disgusting from mass transit to
the internet, its pretty depressing.

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falsestprophet
I don't think this is as important as it is made out to be. These
preposterously high speeds will certainly create opportunities for << internet
>> applications, but I think that they are much less relevant for << web >>
applications. The web is the internet's killer app and I suspect this will
always be the case. There will be important transformations to be sure, but
with more bandwidth we will just have more of the same.

I think that the web is a better interactive application than bandwidth-
intensive video alternatives. It (even MySpace) inherently stimulates our
higher brain functions, whereas video seems to universally produce a trance-
like state. (Although, I suspect this may be a prime opportunity for
impression based advertising.) However good a business that may be, I won't be
a drug pusher.

More bandwidth doesn't make the internet a new medium; it just makes room for
more of what we already have. If I had to guess what The New New Thing will be
on the coming high bandwidth internet (and of course all of us here need to),
I would say that it will be the old old things that people have been trying
from the start. I think it will be nationwide video on demand; I think it will
be bit torrent with a toll. I don't think it is an interesting problem for
hackers or entrepreneurs. It is too messy. It is for suits in the media
companies to clean up.

edit: I may have spoken too quickly. A moment after I posted this, I began to
wonder how much bandwidth is necessary to eliminate the need for a local
computer. That would make one hell of an internet application. I'm sure there
are plenty more. But, I still trust that the web is here to stay.

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iamwil
You're right that in the CURRENT state of affairs, high speeds don't do much
for web applications as we know them to exist today. The web is here to stay,
but not in the form we currently know it.

I disagree that "more bandwidth...will be more of the same." The reason is
when I look at other aspects of computing that have gotten better in the past,
and what they've enabled, it seems like that's not true.

a couple decades ago, 1MB RAM was unfathomable. What would you possibly do
with all that space? We can write programs in 64kb! Well, looks like we added
layers and layers of abstractions to make it easier for programmers at the
expense of more work for computers.

The miniaturization of hard drives and the increase in their capacity has
changed the game a quite a bit. iPods would not be possible without small hard
drives. While it's not the only reason, without it or other similar
technology, we wouldn't have had a change in consumer music and culture.

Like your edit says, with huge bandwidth, your computer here is just as good
as a computer "there" Imagine if your internet connection is as fat of a pipe
as the one going from your hard drive to your motherboard. SCSI, ATA100,
whatever. Remote desktop applications will be just as fast as locally running
one nowadays.

If that's the case, 3D gaming can be completely remote, and subscription based
gaming can become the norm, rather than purchasing boxes and CDs.

If video and TV really do make it on the internet, I imagine it can change the
way we watch it. No longer do we see disjointed segments of content, nor will
we have 'channels' where we have to wait to watch something. We will be able
to pick and choose what we watch, even entire archives of past shows at our
whim. On demand won't just be for movies anymore. (Well, that's given that the
noose of big media doesn't strangle innovation)

My guess is more bandwidth won't be much more of the same. We'll see more
"wasted" bandwidth according to our present defn, but they'll be used in
entirely different ways.

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kingnothing
"U.S. phone and cable companies, which control about 98 percent of the
country's broadband market, strongly oppose the proposed laws, saying they
would discourage the huge investments needed to upgrade broadband speed."

Huge investments such as the $200B from American tax payers in the 1990's that
resulted in nothing?

<http://www.muniwireless.com/article/articleview/5011>

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tx
It's not the speed of connections what is holding web applications back, it's
poor runtime. DOM+JS without _standard_ local storage, with complete absence
of _standard_ libraries for anything but trivial, without any access to PC
hardware... Pretty pathetic... It is especially ironic to see ridiculously
slow speed of simple Flash 2D graphics running full screen on a kick-ass video
card.

Besides, it's not only speed what matters, there is latency issue as well.
With HTTP I cannot tell much difference (visually) when going from 3mbps to
12mbps unless I'm downloading an ISO file or something like that. Browser will
not open more than 2 connections at a time anyway.

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mpfefferle
"The opening of Japan's copper phone lines to DSL competition launched a
"virtuous cycle" of ever-increasing speed..."

They got real performance gains when they decoupled the service provider from
the infrastructure provider. Of course, this was implemented through
regulation, but I wonder what you could do on an open market. Would it be
feasible for consumers to buy into a local fiber network so that they "own"
the last mile? That would give them leverage when selecting a provider for TV,
Internet, and voice service.

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rokhayakebe
My startup and I are moving to Japan. These guys aren't waiting. This speed
will have so much impact in their culture and work in 10 years that other
nations may sit and wonder wtf happened.

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Jd
Are you serious? I am literally moving to Japan in 1 month.

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jamongkad
Whoa whoa hang on why are you guys moving there? Am I missing something here?
:-)

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Jd
Better trust networks, healthcare, public safety are all reasons I would
consider making the move permanent. In the United States even healthcare is an
industry. If you can't trust your doctor, who can you trust?

~~~
jamongkad
That's a good point. Are you guys looking to start a start up there? I'm
currently looking at China and Singapore. But Japan may be third on my list.
What's your email? :-)

