Japan eyeing high speed Internet

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 5. Eminent Japanese economist, Prof. H. Takenaka, has forecast that Japan will become the top country in the world in transmission of high speed information in five years.

Prof. Takenaka who is currently on the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Yoshiro Mori's Information Technology Strategy Council, stressed that this was not just an ambition but a realistic target. At present, the ratio of transmission of high speed information was low compared to countries such as Korea and Hong Kong. The target of his country was now to increase the speed of high-speed Internet.

Addressing a meeting organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Prof. Takenaka, who is on a three-day visit to this country, pointed out that Japan had the largest network of optical fibre in the world and it had a huge amount of investment fund. Yet when it came to transmission of information data and use of Internet, it was very low. This was due to lack of competition and high cost of Internet connections.

Prof. Takenaka said Japan's special thrust would be on the IT industry to revive its economy. He said the Japanese Prime Minister Mr. Mori had set up an IT advisory council on the lines of the Economic Strategic Council which was quite successful.

Prof. Takenaka said cellular mobile penetration was another important revolution in Japan which had a competitive advantage in mobile phone Internet. Around 45 per cent of the Japanese had mobile phones. He noted that one third of the mobile users were Internet users. From next month, he said, new generation mobile phones would be introduced while data processing would increase 40 times and in due course to 200 times.

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