Japan has leapfrogged over Google’s revolutionary 1Gbps broadband service with twice the speed for roughly $20 less a month.

Sony-owned So-net Entertainment on Monday introduced its 2Gbps optical fiber GPON service called NURO, charging as little as $51 a month for 2/1Gbps service.

“Light NURO is reasonably priced, very high-speed fiber to the home broadband that delivers the world’s fastest speeds on technology usually reserved for commercial service,” the company said.

NURO is available in Tokyo and six Kantō region prefectures, including Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama, Gunma, Tochigi, and Ibaraki.

Customers agreeing to a two-year contract get the best prices and a waiver (in certain circumstances) of installation fees as high as $540. Customers wishing to avoid a term contract can sign up for around $77 a month.

Customers are supplied a wireless router with support for speeds up to 450Mbps backwards-compatible with all Wi-Fi wireless devices.

NURO also offers landline telephone service over the fiber network for $5.38 a month. The charge for local calls is $0.09 for each three minutes. Calls to the United States are even cheaper: $0.08 for each three minutes. (There are no government-mandated surcharges on international calls, which account for the lower prices.) Calls to Voice Over IP lines, including other So-net customers are free. Softbank mobile phones can also be free of charge with an add-on plan.

So-net has been providing broadband service in Japan since 1996 and is an aggressive user of optical fiber technology. The company says its new speeds may be even too fast for current wired home LAN technology, but claims faster broadband speeds also enable customers to share multiple devices within the home with absolutely no speed reductions from the shared connection.

So-net serves a densely populated region of Japan that consists of mostly multi-dwelling apartment units and condos and closely packed single family homes. It is not unusual for many urban Japanese homes to have almost no yard, with square lots accommodating a vehicle, storage shed, and little else. Wiring these densely populated communities helped Japan accelerate fiber deployment with more customers served per square kilometer than in countries like the United States or Canada.

[flv width=”640″ height=”323″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/So-net NURO Ad 4-13.flv[/flv]

So-net’s advertising campaign for its NURO fiber to the home service is opaque by western standards, avoiding details about the product, and is strangely presented in English. (2 minutes)