Hello everyone. As the title says, I don't understand how the Internet works here in Japan. Since that's a little misleading, I’ll explain myself better.
I might be completely dumb, but I simply can't wrap my head around how one acquires Internet at home. I have searched Google, asked ChatGPT, but I still can't get it, and I'm getting so many different (and contradictory) pieces of information.
Ok, so first of all, I come from France. There, when you open a line with an ISP, they give you a box that you simply connect to the plug at home and voilà (or two boxes if it’s fiber). And the speed you subscribe to is the speed you get at home. It is literally as simple as that. Even in my current home, I am "not paying" for my Internet, and last time I had a problem with it, they just gave me a different box (a Buffalo one), so I don't really know how it works from experience.
And here comes the complicated part. I’m going to move to a new mansion in a few months, and I would like to have Internet when I move in. Since it’s a new building (this year), I’m guessing it’s equipped with fiber, but I have to ask about that, so don’t take it for granted.
Last weekend, we went to Yodobashi Camera to look around, and we decided to ask some guy there, just to get an idea of price, speed, etc. So that guy checked on his tablet, asked about our current carriers, told us about other carriers—typical salesman stuff. About the home Internet though, he gave us multiple options. Apparently, my mansion is equipped with either 1Gbps or 10Gbps. Let's say there are 50 apartments—he told us that would mean a minimum speed of 20–30Mbps at peak time (depending on usage, etc). He also told us that we wouldn’t need a box since it would be provided by the carrier itself.
Now here are my questions:
- If the ISP is giving boxes like in my home country, what is the point of buying a different box, which is sometimes super expensive even for relatively low speeds?
- 20-30Mbps means 2.5-4Mops, which seems to be a bit low, especially given the price he told us (~4k¥) compared to the 10Gbps (~6k¥). I have some knowledge, but I am far from an expert on this subject, so what are your thoughts about it?
- If we take the 10Gbps, I guess the actual speed will be higher than 10 times the 1Gbps option even during peak hours since less people would subscribe to it given it is more expensive, and the mansion is mostly inhabited by old persons (hence they don't need very high speed imo). But is this assumption correct?
Thank you so much in advance for your replies!
by WhiitEstaaR_