Ah Japan... Totally different infrastructure and totally different mentality. I'd have a gigabit if I lived there...

In answer to your question - the standard vanilla ADSL technology can do 8000/1000 depending on the distance to the exchange. Subsequent flavours of ADSL have improved on this with different modulation techniques. These speeds are still way ahead of what they'll actually let you have since the limit your bandwidth anyway. Swisscom will have to think about upgrading all their ADSL gear (called a DSLAM) at some point if speeds are to move much beyond 5000/500 for the general consumer. This may be a few years off, and not sure of the current state of play.

By the way - who were you quoting in that last message, just a bunch of different text - with no idea where it came from.