Sony Launches World's Fastest Personal Internet... In Japan

[Gahars]

Sony, as you all know, is an electronics company with a wide array of products and services - ranging from video game consoles and televisions to protection rackets and knee-clubbings.

Well, they've also got their fingers in the internet pie, and they're taking an even bigger piece. Except now they're not sharing their piece because they didn't bring American forks. Or something. Crap, now I'm hungry for a good pie. Key lime maybe? Or pumpkin. Pumpkin's good, but it's sort of a seasonal thing and... oh, right, news article. Right.

Look, forget the analogy. Let's just get to the news!

So-net Entertainment, an ISP backed by Sony, announced its 'Nuro' fiber service for home use, which supports download speeds of up to 2gbps. As in two gigabits. To put that into perspective, the average internet speed in the US is around 3mbps, with the fastest available internet capping out at around 150mbps. This means that So-net's Nuro service is up to 13 times faster than the fastest internet in the US.

The service also boasts 1gbps uploads and will be available to homes, apartments, and small businesses in Tokyo and six surrounding prefectures. What should you expect to pay for this monster connection? $200 a month? More? Hardly. The service will be available for just 4,980 yen a month (around $51 USD).

...The company said the service includes rental of an ONU (optical network unit) designed to handle the high speeds. ONU devices are commonly used in homes and business to convert fiber to broadband Internet. Individual users of the service are unlikely to actually see the 2gps speeds on their devices, as it exceeds the capacity of most consumer network adapters. You heard right, your PC's network adapter is the bottleneck.

The Escapist

Japan... only?

I'd say that Sony is acting worse than Mafioso Hitler here, but really, that's not fair. I mean, I don't want to be too harsh on the guy.

So remember - while your internet huffs and puffs just to load Google, Tokyo browsers will be zipping through the web like Flash on a Scarface-inspired coke binge, and all thanks to Sony. Those heartless, careless bastards.

 

[GameWinner]

I'm guessing Tokyo is just some testing ground but I would love for them to bring it over here!

 

[FAST6191]

Pssh- the Swedish upped that by over an order of magnitude 5 years ago
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/12/swedish_woman_has_fastest_internet_connection/

 

[ShadowSoldier]

The internet makes your dick small I heard. In Japan you get blazing fast internet, and in Africa where there's little to know internet...

Anyways, I hope this comes to North America. Sony could perhaps take a huge slice of the pie from google fiber if they did this, and offered it in places where Google won't go. Hell, where I live, we have the best internet package at 20mbps download...

The other packages and ISP's won't come here because we live in too much of a rural area where it's not worth their time.

 

[Maxternal]

Do you even get that kind of bandwidth if you're PART of the Internet?

 

[Rizsparky]

Pssh- the Swedish upped that by over an order of magnitude 5 years ago
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/12/swedish_woman_has_fastest_internet_connection/

And the UK's speeds are still totally shit.

 

[RchUncleSkeleton]

I don't think speeds like that will reach stateside for about 4 or 5 years and I suspect the reasoning is how rampant piracy is in the US.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

The Japanese has to download their tentacle somehow, why not at 2gbps?

 

[notmeanymore]

I don't think speeds like that will reach stateside for about 4 or 5 years and I suspect the reasoning is how rampant piracy is in the US.

Google is already outputting about half that in a few US cities. I could settle for 1 Gbps, how about you?

 

[RchUncleSkeleton]

Google is already outputting about half that in a few US cities. I could settle for 1 Gbps, how about you?

I'm good with a 10th of that seeing as I'm always on a "borrowed" or public WiFi.

 

[Arras]

I doubt 2gbps is useful for the average user though. Can you actually get download speeds like that from servers? They'd have to upload insanely fast as well.

 

[Ethevion]

Why does Sony do something I really like and not bring it over here? Now my 24mbps seems like nothing.

 

[notmeanymore]

I doubt 2gbps is useful for the average user though. Can you actually get download speeds like that from servers? They'd have to upload insanely fast as well.

Hundreds of servers simultaneously, perhaps? No idea.

 

[FAST6191]

I generally advise against making claims for the "average" user as there is so much still left to do- we have already seen companies sell NAS units and internet enabled ones, a lot of people are familiar with video calls, I have pointed a few clients at things like teamviewer and others have had VNC/VPN and such like for years and let us not forget that people have families and sharing a connection between six people can get hairy if everybody wants to watch 1080p youtube in the evening* . Servers themselves..... with a good CDN, the rise of in exchange CDN type arrangements and "1gbps uploads" as mentioned in the source is it such a stretch?

*consider this is also Japan where the landlord might also buy one for a block of flats.

 

[Shoat]

Holy crap, they're going to throw Sweden off the Iro- ... Internet-speed-throne.

Can't wait until ~2030 when I'll finally get access to that over here.

 

[Hop2089]

$51 a month isn't bad even if you won't get close to the 2 gbps due to limitations of hardware, you'd still have a cheaper version of Google Fiber.

 

[GamerzHell9137]

Who has 15kb/s upload speed..... noone?
Yeah....

 

[FAST6191]

Who has 15kb/s upload speed..... noone?
Yeah....

Kilobits or kilobytes because if the latter I scrape 60 on a good day and more often find myself in the 40 range.

 

[DinohScene]

I'll just stick to the up/download I currently have.

It satisfies me needs~

 

[Issac]

Well, my new phone will have up to 80 Mbit/s.. and I'm alright with that