Japan, which has always been proud of providing Internet bandwidth much higher and faster than the rest of the world, is considering capping for the first time.

While telcos in the United States take heat for considering bandwidth caps, Japan has been incredibly reluctant to do so because of the competition to provide higher speed links. However OCN, operated by NTT Communications, will limit downloads to 30 gigabytes daily. Downloads will remain unlimited on NTT’s 100Mbps fibre-optic connections.

The limits are huge by anyone's standards, and even heavy P2P users would be hard pressed to reach it. In comparison, Time Warner recently began testing metered service in Beaumont, Texas, with downloads of 40 gigabytes a month costing $55, and $1 a gigabyte for going over.

However it is a mindset which indicates that even in wide bandwidth Japan, ISPs are starting to feel the pinch of heavy usage. X

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