Tokyo, July 05: Japan, long an Internet laggard, will be one of the world's most wired nations by 2007 as low fees boost demand for broadband services, a government report said. The Telecommunications Ministry, in its annual telecommunications white paper released on Friday, projected that 60 million Japanese -- nearly half the population -- will be surfing the Net on high-speed broadband networks by 2007.
This compares to about 20 million now.
Japan, which had lagged far behind South Korea in adopting high speed Internet connections, has caught up quickly since service provider Softbank Corp launched a cut-price ADSL (assymetric digital subscriber line) service in late 2001.
Japan ranks number three in numbers of broadband subscribers, behind the United States and South Korea, but boasts the cheapest broadband access charges in the world, the report said. Bureau Report