By the way, in the analysis of traffic growth in Japan, I miss information about the speeds/services sold in the period for each technology so that any possible correlation between speed upgrades and traffic growths can be detected. Specifically, upload speed plays a key role in usage growth due to its effect in P2P/symmetrical applications.

Alberto

I have been poking around following your posting of these figures and something everyone might want to consider about this Japanese market as a future predictor relating to broadband traffic:

There is a cultural situation in play here. Simply put, the Japanese are additced to television. Perhaps more than any other place in the world, the Internet and television are in direct competition for people’s disposable time and attention in Japan. I have discussed this at length with a variety of people and they agree that television viewership is a pervasive time-eater within the free time Japanese workers have after their work day closes off. This probably accounts for the very modest jump in Internet traffic seen in your numbers during what ought to be an explosive evening IP traffic increase when people get home – given the high rate of broadband connectivity available to most Japanese.

There are certain programs on over there where it is actually considered uncool if you show up to work the next day and are not prepared to discuss what happened on the show the previous evening.

For what it’s worth, some of these programs come from the best twisted genre of television ever – Japanese game shows, which are indeed addictive.

Thought I’d toss this thinking into the mix. Cheers.

Growth in Broadband Slows Dramatically

The number of Americans with broadband Internet access rose 40 percent between 2005 and 2006, but only 12 percent between 2006 and 2007—although certain segments of the population did much better than that.

The figures, gathered by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in Washington, DC, showed that 47 percent of American adults had high-speed Internet access at the start of 2007, up from 42 percent in 2006, and 30 percent in 2005.

…

If broadband is headed to 75 percent saturation, various parts of the population are getting there at varying speeds—and some of them have already arrived. Among those with an annual income of more than $75,000, the rate of broadband penetration is already 76 percent. The rate falls off with each lower income bracket until the rate is 30 percent for those making less than $30,000.

…

The group that showed the highest growth rate of broadband adoption last year was the under-$30,000 income segment, where the growth rate was 43 percent. It was also the only group that exceeded the growth rate it achieved between 2005 and 2006, when its use grew by 40 percent.

Meanwhile, the opportunity cost for choice starts with gasoline. For example, the drive down to the video store. Or catching a flight to visit a customer. Last week I couldn’t attend a wedding because of the travel, but I would have paid $20 to get my two minutes to congratulate the couple. Is this a viable busines model? That’s a complex cultural question. Will my customer be happy if I don’t show up in person? Can I clinch that big deal by eyeballing a webcam? Dunno today, but the asymptote is a certainty. We’ll get there.

As one of the guys that was there at “The Big BroadBANG” I can tell you with a great deal of certainty that the numbers from Japan are absolutely spot on! Everyone incorrectly assumes that somehow increased bandwidth is synonymous with increased usage, which is absolutely wrong. Think of bandwidth as money; most people that suddenly come to money usually keep the same burn rate. Few will indeed ‘go hog wild’ but most will not change a thing. At the end of the day we are all creatures of habits so applying the technology adoption curve to bandwidth usage makes good sense (e.g.: early adopters, early majority, etc., etc.). As far as bandwidth is concerned we are in the ‘Chasm’ phase and will remain there for the considerable future. Do note that Napster, for all its glory, only increased Internet bandwidth by 3% though it seemed a lot higher then due to an access business model that was based on dial-up oversubscription at the time. Today, Napster wouldn’t even show up as a tiny radar blip.

The problem that most proponents of increased bandwidth usage seem to forget is the following: however many devices are connected to the Net, we can only use one device at the time. Just look at your PC memory utilization; bet you top Vegas odds that even though PC (RAM) memory has increased exponentially over the last decade (giving us another example of famous last words) the average user uses no more memory now than they did a decade ago. One application at a time, which why hyper-connectivity is more hyper than connectivity. Usage will grow at 30% CAGR until we can achieve ‘omnipresence’. See you in the future :).