More than one in three Internet users in Japan use broadband transmission systems such as asymmetrical digital subscriber line services, according to a survey released Wednesday by Nomura Research Institute.

The survey, conducted in September, found that 37.2 percent of people who surf the Internet from home use broadband, high-speed, large-capacity access.

ADSL was the most popular, partly because of its low price, accounting for 22.1 percent of survey respondents. It was followed by Net access via cable at 13 percent and via fiber optics at 2.1 percent.

The poll was conducted on 2,400 people aged between 15 and 59, with 1,703, or 71 percent, responding.

It found 67.2 percent of respondents were using the Internet, up 10.6 percentage points from the figure in a similar survey a year earlier, the private think tank said.

A little more than 23 percent, almost the same as a year earlier, said they were using the Net only on PCs, while 14.8 percent, up 3.1 points, said they were accessing only on their mobile phones.

The percentage of those who use the Net on both PCs and cell phones rose 7.9 points to 29.2 percent.

As for Internet protocol telephone services, known for extremely low prices compared with conventional telephone services, only 9.4 percent of broadband users said they were already getting the new services. But another 38.1 percent of people with broadband access said they were willing to utilize them.

According to the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, Japan is the world's second-largest Internet power after the United States in terms of the number of Net users.

In 2001, there were 57.9 million users in Japan, compared with 142.8 million in the U.S. and China ranked third with 33.7 million.