What's some amazing technology they have in Japan that's very normal to them but would blow our minds here in the US and western world?

egitalian@lemm.ee to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 220 points –
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Japan's current fiber-optic commercial internet connections use optical fiber transmission windows known as L and C multi-core fiber (MCF) bands to transport data long distances at record speeds. Meanwhile we (USA) have fiber back to copper and Cat3 for the last few hundred feet in most cities at best making the entire idea into a bottle neck.

There are a lot of very good reasons to switch back to copper for the last portion of a run. I highly doubt that consumer internet in Japan is terminating fiber directly into peoples' computers. Fiber is a lot more expensive both for the line, to run it, more prone to breakage, the network cards are more expensive, etc. It's really not needed for most purposes.

Also no one uses cat3 for data and it can't be run for 'hundreds of feet'. And LC fiber IS used in the US - that's a kind of connector not the kind of fiber.

I highly doubt that consumer internet in Japan is terminating fiber directly into peoples' computers.

You run fiber to the home and gigabit ethernet or whatever internally in the premises. All your other complaints re: cost and etc aren't really an issue for last mile consumer grade fiber.

I have seen installers run a fiber drop cable across from a power pole, bring it down an outside wall , then staple it to joists under a house, cleave off the end and stick a mechanical splice on it, bang it in the power meter, all good, plug it in the fiber modem, good to go in less than 20 minutes. All this stuff uses standard components and technology that's been available for 10+ years now.

Also no one uses cat3 for data and it can't be run for 'hundreds of feet'. And LC fiber IS used in the US - that's a kind of connector not the kind of fiber

It's probably the standard "last mile" half assed solution where they decide to use existing phone lines and VDSL from a box down the street instead of biting the bullet and running fiber.

This is how it works in the UK too. I've got Fibre To The Premises (FTTP), and the installation was pretty much exactly as you described.

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I'm in Italy and I have a fiber internet port inside my home

This is like arguing that SMS is still a good messaging platform.

No it's not? Fiber is a bad solution for short runs for residential use inside people's homes. Copper can pull 10 gig speeds or more.

I have fiber to home in Canada

Yeah, it's not terminated in your computer though for all the reasons I said.

And so what? I have 1.5 Gb symmetrical with latency to many sites and game servers under 10 ms (on Wi-Fi!)

Typing from my Tokyo fiber-to-the-home connection now. They ran it off the pole, installed a little thing in my house, ran the fiber to the modem they make me rent, and it works like a charm.

Yeah, it's not terminated in your computer though for all the reasons I said.

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Cat3? As in most cities in the US are limited to 10mbps?

No, the average internet download speed in the United State is about 171 Mbps. Though disclaimer, I'm not sure of the exact reliability of that number, different sources are reporting quite a range of speeds, though I don't see any under 100 Mbps average and I see many reporting well above this. You'd also have to consider median vs average since people with fiber sitting at gigabit speeds may be dragging that number up, median may be lower.

https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/fastest-slowest-internet

There are certainly some areas, especially rural, that struggle though. And upload speed is often much worse unless you have fiber. Major cities are definitely getting much better than 10 Mbps down though.

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Cat 3 isnt actually a thing, but people call house phone wiring that. Runs DSL quite well.

Cat 3 is a thing and is basically unshielded twisted pair. You can abuse it quite a bit from its voice grade days to cram a few hundred megabits of VDSL over it if it's only from your house to the curb.

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Sweden is also quite well connected with fiber.

Yes, but nowhere compared to the Netherlands and Denmark

Ofc the size of the countries makes it easier.

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