Cable TV in Japan
Competitive status in full digital age
Hiroshi ASAMI
asami@catv.or.jp
Japan Cable Television Engineering Association （JCTEA)
Growth of Cable TV subscribers
Cable subscribers increasing steadily.
Cable subscribers number reached 25 million in 2010 (46.9%
households in Japan)
(households)
No. of CATV subscribers
30,000,000
25,000,000
20,000,000
15,000,000
10,000,000
5,000,000
0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Source Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
Upgrade of Transmission Facility
Toward HFC and FTTH
Optical Fiber installation in trunk line Number of cable operators deploying HFC
Trunk line gross length in Japan and FTTH (581 operators out of 682)
Half of trunk lines are fiber optic cable
(km)
300,000
250,000
HFC
200,000 FTTH FTTH
Metal Cable
150,000 metal line HFC
fiber line length
100,000
50,000
0
2006 2007 2008 2009
Source Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
Toward Full digital by the year 2011
Terrestrial analog TV will be shutdown in July 2011
Digital terrestrial TV standard: ISDB-T(OFDM)
Digital Cable TV standard: (64)QAM
90% households already own digital television set with
digital terrestrial tuner and HD display
Cable TV operators are transmitting terrestrial program
by pass-through (OFDM) and/or QAM
In addition
Analog NTSC service by digital to analog conversion to
save analog TV set
or
Free delivery of digital to analog Cable-box
Growth of Residential Broadband Connection
by Technology
(thousand)
20000
18000
16000
14000
12000 CATV
10000
DSL
8000
FTTH
6000
4000
2000
0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
FTTH includes FTTP(Fiber to the premises + VDSL)
Total Broadband subscribers reached 32 million (64.7% household in Japan)
Source Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
Broadband Connection by Technology as of
March 2010
CATV 4.3 million
CATV
DSL
DSL 9.7 FTTH
FTTH 17.7 million million
Source Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
Competition with Telephone Companies
Telephone companies offering FTTH service with
reasonable price, and offering TV service using IP or
RF transmission.
FTTH access availability ratio is 90% of population in
2010
Fierce full competition (Television, Broadband,
Telephone)
Price example of NTT (FTTH 100Mmax + provider
fee + telephone + television(basic))
JPY5,000 (USD56)(condominium type)
~JPY9,000(USD100)(house type)
Price competition of Cable operators (example 1)
Price of Cable Internet (120M) is JPY5250 = USD58
(1USD=90JPY)
Price competition of Cable operators (example 2)
Triple play price with 100M internet is JPY 8,945 = USD99/M
(1USD=90JPY)
For further development of Cable TV
Pay TV Market in Japan still small
Pay TV subscribers 15 Million (less than 30% of households) ?
Multichannel Pay TV Cable: 8 million (8M out of 25M)
Satellite Pay TV: 4 million
IPTV 1 million
Pay TV growth still slow
Incumbent free to air broadcasters are still dominant although
the market is saturated
Competition with Internet Video services
Low share of Cable broadband in spite of fast speed
Myth: FTTH Let there be light! , Coax: obsolete
Needs breakthrough
Variety of new Service; 3D, VOD, DVR, home ICT
Cooperation among small independent cable operators
Technology to support New Services
Cable Network Enhancement
Migration to FTTH
RFoG
256QAM+
Home Network
Next Generation STB
Residential Gateway
DLNA Connectivity
ICT Services
New Cable Platform (Service Delivery Platform for multiple
cable operators)
Wireless (wireless broadband, small power digital TV)
Thank You
Our website http://www.catv.or.jp