News From Japan.

The history of the use of electricity in Japan began as telecommunication, which started in 1869, one year after the Meiji Restoration. The first electric arc lamp shone in Ginza, Tokyo, in 1882, the same year as the start of operation of Edison's Pearl Street Power Plant in New York. Only four years later (1886), Tokyo Electric Light Company, one of the predecessors of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, started its business as the first electric power company in Japan. Many similar companies started their businesses in the following several years. In these early days, electric power companies in eastern Japan imported 50-Hz generators from Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) in Germany, and those in western Japan imported 60-Hz generators from General Electric Company in the United States. From this historical background, AC 50 Hz is still used in eastern Japan and 60 Hz in western Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]