UTStarcom has signed an expansion contract valued at $18.6 million with Softbank BB for further deployments of its AN-2000 IP-based DSLAM. The platform is being used to enable the new Yahoo! BB 45 Mbps high-speed ADSL service to more than four million broadband subscribers in Japan.
Softbank BB reached more than four million subscribers by the end of March 2004. The company introduced 8 Mbps ADSL data service in September 2001, attracting more than 100,000 subscribers in the first month alone. In August 2002, Softbank BB introduced Japan’s first 12Mbps service, which also provided subscribers with a personal mailbox, a homepage, and a wide range of value-added services.
Softbank BB is the first competitive carrier in the world to surpass the incumbent provider in market share. Yahoo! BB has achieved a dominant share of the DSL market in Japan among residential users, small and medium-sized enterprises, and small office/home office users. With high-speed content delivery made possible by UTStarcom’s AN-2000 IB, Softbank BB believes it offers the highest performance of any service provider in Japan.
In April 2002, Softbank BB added its “BB Phone” VoIP service. Subscribers can place calls within the IP network free of charge, while calls terminating outside the network, including calls within Japan as well as international calls, cost only a fraction of competing services. BB Phone subscriber numbers reached more than one million users just 7 months after the service was introduced and currently has approximately 3.8 million subscribers. http://www.utstar.com
