### A. Growth through rapid spread of DSL

DSL service was launched in 2000, with rules regarding fees and technical conditions for connection of unbundled $ ^{10} $ subscriber lines put in place in August of the same year, and various new providers putting affordable DSL services such as Yahoo!BB on the market in 2001. Fees gradually fell for all providers, including NTT East Japan, the first to offer DSL to consumers. Connection speeds progressively increased, and the number of subscribers rose dramatically, surpassing 10 million in 2003, three years after the start of service.

### B. Increasing use of cable Internet

Cable Internet was introduced in 1996, earlier than DSL, and the number of subscribers has shown ongoing growth ever since. In terms of connection speed, service with speeds of up to 100Mbps was launched by JCOM in 2005, and services with maximum speeds of 160Mbps are now available. Both speed and bandwidth are continually increasing.

### C. Increasing use of, and shift to FTTH

FTTH, which is capable of higher speeds than DSL, got a full-fledged start in 2001, and while it has grown in prevalence since then, it lagged behind the growth of DSL between 2001 and 2004 (Figure 2-1-2-2). However, as the price has fallen since service was launched, its growth in popularity has been continuous, and in 2008 the number of subscriptions surpassed that of DSL which had been declining since 2005. With the Internet era entering a new phase, there is an ongoing shift from DSL to FTTH, which can now be called the key means of broadband access.

### 2. Mobile Internet penetration

The advent of mobile phone IP addresses that enable connection to the Internet using mobile phones made it possible to send and receive e-mail and browse mobile websites via mobile phone. This led to the rise of a new business model in which users register with content providers operating sites with attractive content or convenient services and pay monthly fees together with their phone bills, and led in turn to the appearance of a wide variety of mobile phone-oriented online content.

The percentage of people accessing the Internet via a mobile device such as a cellular phone, PHS phone or personal digital assistant (PDA) (Figure 2-1-2-3) rose dramatically between 2002 and 2005. This was due in part to the appearance of flat-rate price plans for mobile Internet packets, which mobile phone carriers began offering in 2003, and which allowed users to access the Internet by mobile phone without worrying about the cost. It can be said that this led to the personalization of Internet use by creating an environment in which individuals could connect to the Internet without having to use a shared device such as a home computer.

In 2001, second-generation (2G) mobile phones began to be replaced by third-generation (3G) phones capable of high-speed data transmission, and the shift continued to the point where 98.8% of mobile phones are 3G (Figure 2-1-2-4) as of the end of FY2010. As a result, not only has Internet access become more personalized, but mobile Internet access is increasingly faster and higher-capacity (richer.)

Figure 2-1-2-2 Change in number of broadband subscribers by type of line

(Source) Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications "Survey on the Impact and Reciprocal Relationship of ICT Infrastructure Progress and Citizens' Lifestyles and the Social Environment" (2011)