Japanese internet speeds & costs

There's been a thing on Digg recently about the speed and cost of internet services in Japan. Service, of all kinds, is genuinely good in Japan. In the UK it's treated as an additional cost - my parents bought a new fridge in April, it stopped working in May, and, after they refused to replace it, it still hasn't been repaired even in August as the company "can't get the part", and the retailer refuses to have anything to do with it after the sale. Disgusting frankly, and simply wouldn't happen in Japan. (BTW, the retailer is Curry's, a company that has close to a monopoly on electrical sales in the UK, and the brand was Samsung. Be warned.)

I worked out that it costs us about ¥6,000 a month for a 10mps ADSL connection here. That includes the obligatory ¥1,785 a month to NTT for thprivilegege of using their telephone lines. It doesn't include the fact that NTT owes me ¥210,000 in deposits I've paid to actually rent (you never own) telephone lines from them over the years. NTT is now doing a special promotion that would cut our internet cost to about ¥5,000 a month -- they advertise '¥2,625', but that's before router rental and other nicely hidden charges. After being ripped off by this company for 20 years, I'm reluctant to switch.

I did come across Speedtest.net too, and checked my download time. It varies significantly from Europe, but to San Francisco, it's not too bad:

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