Japan has more than 20 million broadband access subscribers as of June 2005, which means about 43.5% of its households (46 million in 2000) have any kind of broadband connectivity. According to MIC (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications), the official definition of "Broadband subscription" is as follows: Subscribers of ADSL, FTTH (Fiber To The Home), CATV, and FWA (Fixed Wireless Access). ADSL is the most popular broadband connection right now; however, FTTH has grown by 194% comparing last year, and 0.5 million in 2Q05, when ADSL grew 0.4 million.

Key Broadband Players

Access Network
NTT East (ADSL and FTTH)
NTT West (ADSL and FTTH)
SoftbankBB (ADSL and FTTH)
e-Access (ADSL)
Acca Networks (ADSL)
The Tokyo Electric Power Company, Inc (TEPCO: FTTH)
USEN (FTTH)
Jupiter Telecommunications (JCOM: CATV provider)

ISP
SoftbankBB (Yahoo!BB)
NTT Communications (OCN)
Fujitsu (@Nifty)
NEC (Biglobe)
KDDI (Dion)
Sony (So-net)
NTT East (Plala)
Panasonic (Hi-ho)
Internet Initiative Japan (IIJ)

Wireless Broadband
NTT DoCoMo (W-CDMA)
KDDI (au; CDMA 2000 1x)
Vodafone KK (W-CDMA)
Willcom (PHS)
Livedoor (Wi-Fi)
Most of major ISPs (Wi-Fi)

Major Access Technologies
ADSL: 14 million
FTTH: 3 million
CATV: 3 million
FWA: 0.02 million
Wireless Broadband (3G): 38 million (CDMA 2000 1X: 19.5 million, W-CDMA: 18.5 million)
Wireless Broadband (PHS): 3.4 million
Wireless Broadband (Wi-Fi): 4.67 million (including pay-per-use subscriptions)

Price (per Mega bits; may vary depending on actual Mega bits)

ADSL (Yahoo! BB at 50M): $0.52
ADSL (NTT East + Plala networks at 50M): $0.64
CATV (JCOM at 30M): $1.35
FTTH (Usen at 100M): $0.26

Maximum Speed available to consumers

ADSL: Up to 50M (best effort based services; actual speeds may vary depending on distance from node buildings of NTT East / West)
FTTH: Up to 100M (Actual speeds may vary depending on the number of connection sharing per fiber line)
CATV: 30M
Wireless Broadband (3G): Up to 2Mbps (CDMA 2000 1X) and up to 384kbps (W-CDMA)
Wireless Broadband (PHS): Up to 256kbps (8x packet)
Wireless Broadband (Wi-Fi): Up to 54Mbps (802.11g)

Resources

The Number of Broadband Service Subscribers (as of June 2005)
http://www.soumu.go.jp/s-news/2005/050831_3.html
(Japanese Only; please replace this link if there is any official English version of this press release)

Prices of Broadband Services
http://www.soumu.go.jp/s-news/2005/050809_4.html
(Japanese Only; please replace this link if there is any official English version of this press release)

The Number of Wireless Subscribers (as of September 2005)
http://www.tca.or.jp/eng/database/daisu/yymm/0509matu.html

This page contains useful links written in english.
http://www.soumu.go.jp/joho_tsusin/eng/statistics.html