PARIS, April 22 -- Japanese firms are offering by far the cheapest and fastest broadband services of companies operating in 30 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), according to the first such report compiled by the international organization, according to an article in The Nihon Keizai Shimbun. The survey, which was conducted in October, shows Japanese companies leading the pack with KDDI Corp., NTT East Corp. and usen Corp. offering throughput of over 100 Mb/s with their fiber optic networks. No firms outside of Japan matched the copper phone line-based digital subscriber line (DSL) service of eAccess Ltd., another Japanese firm, featuring a throughput of 40 Mb/s. Japanese companies were far ahead of such major forces as Sweden's Bostream AB, with throughput of 26 Mb/s, and South Korea's Hanaro Telecom Inc.'s 20 Mb/s. Verizon, which offered the fastest service in the US, delivers only 7.1 Mb/s. Three services offered by two Japanese companies made the list of the world's cheapest services among those with throughput of at least 10 Mb/s. They are the 12-Mb/s Yahoo BB service of Yahoo Japan Corp., at $19.09 per month; KDDI's 100 Mb/s service, which costs $20.07 a month; and Yahoo BB's 26 Mb/s service, at $20.54. According to the OECD report, Japan is one of the major industrialized countries whose broadband market developed the fastest since the second half of 2001. The report credits measures taken to encourage competition, such as the use of NTT telecom lines by other firms, with assisting the market growth in Japan. Comparison of telecom services in various countries has been difficult, since there is no fixed worldwide definition for broadband. The OECD report defines a broadband service as one offering round-the-clock Internet connectivity and a download speed of at least 250 kB/s. For more information, visit: www.oecd.org