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Japan Google Networking Sony The Internet

Sony Launches Internet Service Offering Twice the Speed of Google Fiber 268

An anonymous reader writes "Sony Japan has announced that its own Internet service provider So-net Entertainment has launched what is thought to be the world's fastest Internet connection for home use in Japan with download speed of 2 Gbps on average. This speed is twice as fast as competing high-speed fiber connections in Japan. The ultra-fast connection, known as Nuro, will cost an inexpensive 4,980 yen ($51) per month- offering download speeds of 2 Gbps and uploads of up to 1 Gbps."
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Sony Launches Internet Service Offering Twice the Speed of Google Fiber

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  • thnx sony (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    thnx sony 2x the first post power

  • by Anonymous Coward

    No doubt Sony will figure out a way to ensure that you only use it for Sony approved content.

    They will actually turn the internet into a series of tubes, all controlled by Sony Inc.

    • Since this is in Japan, why do they need to bother? They'll pretty much have a monopoly, unless companies like NTT decide to get into the act. Is Google likely to try duplicating its US efforts in Japan? Actually, there, given how compact that nation is, it will be a loss less extensive effort to set it up there than it is to set it up in the US.
    • My first thought. Getting your Internet connection from a pro-DRM media company with a fetish for proprietary tech rivaled only by Apple's, what could possibly go wrong?

    • lol that funny. It was my first thought too.
  • And it's in Japan (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hedwards ( 940851 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2013 @09:47AM (#43461649)

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Japan already have better connection options than the US? I know that it's fast, but how is this particularly notable?

    • by wonkey_monkey ( 2592601 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2013 @09:58AM (#43461851) Homepage
      Because it goes up to 11.
    • Rubbing salt in the wound
      Displaying the increasing disparity between what our providers call 'high speed broadband' and what they do(Not to mention the pricing differences.)
      Because someone somewhere is getting the dream speeds we drool over
      It's tech oriented and geeky
      That kind of speed in the home is just cool

      Take your pick, all fit the standard Slashdot focus.
    • Well according to TFS, it's twice as fast as competing services in Japan. So apparently 1Gbps connections aren't uncommon over there. Of course, TFS doesn't say what the competing services cost, but I suspect that if this one is only a measly $51 (compared to the outrageous prices we pay here in the USA), the competing services probably are pretty cheap too.

    • by ProppaT ( 557551 )

      Yup. And, seriously, I can't be the only one pissed off that they're getting 2gbps for the same price as most of us are paying for 10mbps. That's absurd. And I get nastygrams from the cable company when I watch too much Netflix (sorry, can't justify paying an extra $70 for a bunch of channels I don't want and a cable box).

  • by Compaqt ( 1758360 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2013 @09:48AM (#43461655) Homepage

    Is there really a noticeable difference between 1Gbps and 2?

    • by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Tuesday April 16, 2013 @09:51AM (#43461715)

      "Is there really a noticeable difference between 1Gbps and 2?"

      A big one, the data has to wait twice as long for your harddisk.

    • Depends on the number of torrents you're running.
    • Is there really a noticeable difference between 1Gbps and 2?

      There's a big difference.

      Whether you personally have a use for it is a different question.

  • by PeeAitchPee ( 712652 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2013 @09:50AM (#43461683)
    . . . now in 1080p with 7.1 surround!
    • a more interesting question, would this be enough for widespread adoption of the newest 4k video standard?

      • That probably depends more on what people are shooting and editing with on the one end, and what people are decoding and viewing with on the other.

        Thanks to the magic of lossy compression, you can get pretty much any resolution you want at any data rate you want(just ask Youtube about their 1080p...). If memory serves, BD-ROM 'HD' video tops out at just under 50mb/s, and is generally considered endurable, and many broadcast and cable channels squeeze considerably harder than that. If we naively assume that

  • For those living in certain parts of Japan. It's also an awesome "competition" with Google Fiber, which isn't in Japan. :)

    • You can 'compete' with someone you're not in direct business competition for. If nothing else, being able to market as "The fast ISP on Earth' (or you could even get away with 'In the known Universe') sounds better than 'The fastest ISP in the country'.

      • You can 'compete' with someone you're not in direct business competition for. If nothing else, being able to market as "The fast ISP on Earth' (or you could even get away with 'In the known Universe') sounds better than 'The fastest ISP in the country'.

        The fastest? I thought they've operated at the speed of light since the first fiber inception.

        I'm just messin' with words. ;)

        • And of course even if we take "fastest" to mean "highest bandwidth" it's only true if you limit yourself to connections that are sold at consumer/small buiness prices.

  • by SmurfButcher Bob ( 313810 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2013 @09:52AM (#43461739) Journal

    ...if for any reason it causes the silentl install of a rootkit or performs some other criminal act within your enterprise, you'll be entitled to a pair of $1 iTunes gift certificates.
    Take THAT, google fiber!

  • This is Sony, there's something proprietary here surely? You can only use their router? You can only connect to the service using some terribad desktop app?

  • $51 is expensive? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MickyTheIdiot ( 1032226 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2013 @09:53AM (#43461773) Homepage Journal

    It's arguable that with everything that a Comcast subscription requires that we pay 2-3 times that depending on what you REALLY want and use out of your service.

    I think it's an extremely reasonable price given U.S. conditions.

  • Hmmm ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2013 @09:56AM (#43461829) Homepage

    I don't know how Sony treats people in Japan, but for me Sony would be the last company I would trust as my ISP.

    People who install root-kits on computers are going to go to great lengths to look out for their own interests. They also don't have the greatest track record for security.

    I'm probably just a tad bitter and cynical, but there's a lot of ways in which my distrust/dislike of Sony would make me think this isn't something I'd want. They'll probably be doing DPI and everything else shady you can imagine.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You do realize that sony is a massive company and the division that would run the isp is not the same division as Sony BMG?

      If you didn't know, see divisions don't necessarily know what the others are doing and they definitely don't get a say in their decision making. When you grow up and start working for a company, you'll start to understand this.

      If you did know, well shame on you for circle jerking over "evil sony". Give it a break already, it happened 6 years ago. they apologized, learned their lesson,

    • by Minwee ( 522556 )

      I don't know how Sony treats people in Japan, but for me Sony would be the last company I would trust as my ISP.

      That's only because Electronic Arts doesn't offer that service yet.

      "EA Fibre 2012 servers will be closing down later this month, but you can pre-order EA Fibre 2014 and get a Free(*) copy of Sim City!"

  • by Yvanhoe ( 564877 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2013 @10:01AM (#43461881) Journal
    Last time I was in Japan, I had a good connection, but the ISP decided to drop every ssh connection above a given traffic. My tunnels kept being broken until I set a speed limit on my side.

    I tried also to seed some videos (that I created) but did not manage to get peers at more than 1KB/s

    It is good to have a high speed, but it is useless if it is just to watch youtube videos. I won't trade the decent DSL I have here in France through a protocol-tolerant ISP (Free Telecom) to a fiber connection through someone like Sony who is well known for its tight control.
  • Even if servers can dish out content at 2 Gbps (and many of them can't), almost all modern NICs max out at Gigabit Ethernet support. Although a 10 Gbps Ethernet standard has existed for a couple years, the cabling and termination requirements are extremely tight (most existing Cat5 and even Cat6 installations won't qualify) and the network cards cost hundreds of dollars while switches cost thousands.

    I think this service would be most useful to small businesses, which could easily support both their internal

  • by Krneki ( 1192201 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2013 @10:07AM (#43461975)

    So, I got this super-awesome 2Gbps internet connection. What cheap router (max 50E) should I buy?

    • by RulerOf ( 975607 )
      Get two of them and wire them in series: WAN -> LAN -> WAN -> LAN. That'll double the capacity of your tube processing power, and you're good to go!
  • by TheSkepticalOptimist ( 898384 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2013 @10:16AM (#43462111)

    Why do I care how fast Japanese can access content when it takes 30 seconds to load www.google.com in Canada using one of the top telco's in the country?

    Canada truly is the 3rd world of internet access.

    Aside from that, not sure how or why Sony is getting into the ISP fray. Could be that they are failing in every other division so why not enter a new market.

    Personally, I will wait for Samsung's internet services, Japan itself is failing in innovation all around.

    • by Reapman ( 740286 )

      As a fellow Canadian I think we're getting off topic here, but I think you mean Eastern Canada. Here in the west it's pretty decent. I'm a pretty cheap guy, so only have the 50 Meg service Shaw offers (I think its like $60, so cheap being relative), but for $10 I can double it to 100 Meg. My cap is like 400 Gigs too. 100 Meg.. no idea what that cap is. If Shaw ever packed up and I had to use the other guys, Telus, I'd probably cry, but so far I'm quite happy with Shaw. Not Google Fiber (or Sony?!?) sp

    • Why do I care how fast Japanese can access content when it takes 30 seconds to load www.google.com in Canada using one of the top telco's in the country?

      Canada truly is the 3rd world of internet access.

      New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are now getting FiberOP (similar to FIOS), which goes up to 250MB. My Dad has it.

      I'm jealous because I can't get a similar service in the Mass. town where I live (Verizon stopped their FIOS rollout in MA before getting to us).

    • It is not just internet access, the whole telecommunications industry is a joke. Slightly more so than even the US which is really depressing. We make fun of about the US government being in bed with big business, yet they are getting screwed slightly less somehow by their telcos. When I was overseas on a group vacation, all the other folks from various countries balked in wonderment when the Canadians and Americans told them what they pay for cell plans and service, and that none of us could use them anywh

  • "Targeting individual homes and apartment buildings of two floors or fewer"

    Yes, someone actually uses "or fewer" instead of "or less" when talking about countable objects!

    Yes, I really am that person who hates it when supermarkets have a "ten items or less" queue....

    • News flash for you, pseudo-pedantic boy, one integer can indeed be less than another. Don't make us repeat this one or more times, less than two times should be sufficient.

  • One of the barriers to a higher acceptance of telecommuting is IMO the (low) quality of telepresence, which is mainly due to a lack of bandwidth. Imagine what will be possible with Nuro. Of course, it won't make much of a difference on the whole if only a few people in a few areas have access to this kind of bandwidth, but if it ever becomes the norm I think it will make a difference.
  • I pay 50 bucks a month (plus taxes) for a whopping 5mbps down on average (supposedly it's 7, but I'd say on average it's about 5; I do see close to 7 occasionally). At least I got free long distance out of verizon as a "we're sorry" present for them having completely fracked up our order and making me take a whole day of vacation to be on the phone with them trying to fix it, even though I told them in advance several times that it looked like my order was messed up, and they promised, several times, that t

  • I'm quite interested to hear what, if any, new and interesting things people are doing with their 1 and 2gbps fibre connections, in Google neighbourhoods and in Japan.

    While incremental increases in speed are nice, big jumps like this make whole new uses possible. For example before ADSL and cable we could do most of the things we do today just slower, but usable quality video wasn't really feasible, certainly not on-demand. I have a 120mbps (10mbps up) connection which is great for video on demand, and sync

  • Get back to me when they wire up the US ;)
  • Is that they cap your download speed, so you can only use your internet for about a minute a month. :-)

  • that will stream Sony content at extra optional cost all day long, to the router if not to your PC.

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