if any of you are getting this make sure you get it directly from chonghua dianxin (hinet), i made the mistake of using giga for a year before i found out only hinet has a direct link to the outside world and is far faster for overseas sites.
Actually, because of their third world infrastructure and laws, ISPs are supposed to get their connection from Chungwa Telco. and none are allowed to have/own/rent/build submarine cables.
Their spin is that by having Chungwa their point man, they can get a better deal from the Tier 1 carriers.
Well, look around and see how much that’s helping them.
In tokyo, I can get a 12mbps DSL line for ~1000 NT.
Give them a couple 'o years more, I guess 
12mbps for 3000 yen? sorry, i don’t buy that. 1.2 mbps MAYBE, but what isp in their right mind offers 12mbps dsl? 
i found dsl in taiwan to be cheaper than dsl in the us…it’s just that their connections suck ass.
12Mbps ADSL line for 3880 Yen, actually they’ve a special now where you pay only 2400 Yen ! 
Half a dozen companies and lots of good deals to find, too lazy to look up, but here’s one from Livedoor.
If you have ADSL with the phone company (Zhong1 Hua2 Dian4 Xin4), I found that it’s much better to have a “fixed IP” connection, and the price is only a few hundred NT more per month. I used to have the regular (non-fixed IP) ADSL connection, and I kept getting disconnected every time I didn’t use the computer for more than 30 minutes. Sometimes I even got disconnected while I was in the middle of typing a long e-mail! So then I found out that I can get a fixed IP for 1299 NT per month (instead of 999 NT per month for a non-fixed IP), and now my computer is permanently connected to the internet 24 hours a day, even when the computer is turned off! I never need to log in anymore, and I never get disconnected, either. But the only disadvantage is that if someone finds out my IP, they might be able to access files which are on my computer, so I’m going to have to install a “firewall”. (But I don’t know how to do that. Could someone please tell me how to do it?)
I’d suggest go for a hardware and software solution.
Get ZoneAlarm for spyware and phone home apps.
For hardware, Linksys has some good cable\DSL Routers which work like a switch/firewall/NAT all-in-one package. Its mostly plug n play, so you don’t have to configure much. I’ve never bought one here, can’t tell you where to get, but ask 'n look around, you should find it.
And get Norton Antivirus for bugs and virii.
That should protect and keep your pc safe.
ok, i’m still not buying the 12 mbps number. if only because everything i’ve read says that phone wires are not capable of carrying that much bandwidth:
not sure what they mean by 12mbps, but unless they’ve found some incredible technology to unlock phone lines that i haven’t heard of on ANY of the tech sites, it’s just a marketing gimmick.
Let me explain then…
Quote from your link:
8Mbps lines have been around for quite a while now. They use the 138KHz - 1.1MHz frequency band. To get 12Mbps, their modems use multiplexing and a slice of the 26KHz -138KHz band to get another 4Mbits.
Take a look here at another famous ISP there, Yahoo Japan BB.
Japan’s way ahead in telecommunications. Not to forget, they’re the only country with a working 3G mobile network. 