IP: Dark Fiber Optics Under the All Highways Disclosed ; End of the NTT dominance?

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

>Dark Fiber Optics Under the All Highways Disclosed
>End of the NTT dominance?
>Field: Fiber Optics             Topics: Competition
>
>On August 9, 2001, a METI (The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry)
>official, who is leading METI's IT Industry policies, talked about part of
>a METI's telecommunications plan to the coming deregulation discussion to
>Yoshihiro Tanaka, President of FuuUn & Rivals, Ltd. In general it is known
>that NTT has 80 thousand kilometer fiber optics cables, the 11 electricity
>companies have 126 thousand kilometer, and 22 railroad companies have around
>10 thousand kilometer. It is also known that there are tunnels under
>highways and main national roads. Several discussions to the NTT dominance
>issue focused on the opening of the above fiber optics cables and tunnels.
>Instead, what the METI official said was different from the above
>discussions.
>
>The METI official said, "Actually there exist many hidden fiber optics
>cables, so-called dark fiber, set under all highways and main national
>roads. The total length of their network is longer than that of NTT's and
>moreover the dark fiber can apply the WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing)
>technology as opposed to NTT's dual mode fiber, which can not utilize
>  WDM." He added, "The former Ministry of Construction (MOC), which was in
>charge of developing highways and national roads, seemed to obtain more
>budget than necessary to set fiber optics for the use of telemetry. Instead,
>the MOC laid real fiber optics cables almost secretly. Because of the
>regular personnel reshuffling, almost no one in the MOC knew this reality
>nor anyone in the MPHPT."
>
>The reason why this reality did not show up publicly is that if the dark
>fibers were made public, not only NTT would get seriously damaged, but also
>the MOC would get punished for their illegal implementation of the national
>budget. Thus, no matter how this issue is disclosed, there may be many
>high-ranked officials and politicians, who would be accused of their
>wrongdoings. Based on our research on the METI's plan, FuuUn analyzes that
>the METI's objective seems to open the dark fiber network to private
>companies with almost no charge to be compared with the charge by NTT. But
>FuuUn is not sure that the METI can utilize their political power to shut
>off serious resistance from other stakeholders, and attain their objective.
>
>(Written by Yoshihiro Tanaka, yoshi_tanaka@fuuun.com)



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