Marubeni Venture With Motorola For Pc Services
The new company, which will develop multimedia contents, will be 60 per cent owned by Marubeni, 30 per cent by Motorola, and four per cent by Fuji Bank.
It will use the cable network of Japanese cable TV companies to provide interactive services currently available through PC networks, including high-speed Internet services, games and information services.
The service will initially be provided through a cable TV company affiliated with Marubeni.
Demand for Internet and other PC services has grown rapidly in Japan in recent years, but the market for cable TV has been slow to develop.
By offering PC services through the cable network, which has the capacity to carry substantially more additional data than broadcast programmes at significantly faster speeds.
Japan's cable TV companies, most of which are struggling to make profits, could make better use of their infrastructure.
At the same time, the use of cable TV could provide subscribers with faster connection and better quality graphics than is available on the PC services that use a telephone line. Michiyo Nakamoto, Tokyo