Softbank Builds Two New Japanese Cable Landing Stations For The ETA Cable

Japan suffers from a lack of physical diversity in cable landings. For example, the Maruyama CLS serves 8 cables, most of them major Internet arteries including ASE, APG, Jupiter, TPE, and ADC. According to the Submarine Networks website the country has more than 20 facilities. However, they are densely concentrated as the map below shows. Moreover, it would not be surprising if many of the are sharing back haul fibre. Consequently, the Japanese government is giving money to Softbank for the construction of two new cable landing stations in the Hokkaido and Fukuoka projects because they make nations's telecommunications more robust The project's anchor tenant is the ETA (East to America) subsea cable. 

In general I am skeptical of subsidies for a variety of very good reasons, namely they usually distort the allocation of resources in pursuit  of political gain. However, aid for new cable landings that are diverse to the existing landing infrastructure may be exception. It would be better for the EU to get out of the cable system funding business and focus on low cost ways of promoting physical diversity via edict or subsidies. For example, the UK government should be deeply concerned that many major cables (Apollo, Amitié, 2Africa, Grace Hopper, Express, GLO-1, EIG, Yellow, and Beaufort (2027)) land at Bude, UK divided among 3 landing stations with two Vodafone facilities hosting most of them. I would advocate subsidizing new cable landing stations that are not only diverse to the usual suspects, but also involve new back hual fibre routes to Slough Equinix, Manchester, and London. 

The challenge in creating physical diversity in landing infrastructure is simple. Using an existing CLS sharply reduces capex for a new project and accelerates it by avoiding new permits and construction. Another challenge is latency. Minimizing latency will lead to cable landings to cluster like they do in Bude. Landing at Bude is the shortest path to London. The map of Japan's cable landing stations clearly illustrates a similar clustering tendency. Carriers tend to ignore the benefits of diversification due to wholesale price pressure. Another factor is simply corporate myopia as most telecom senior management has a limited understanding of the business. Very few have done sales. A key factor is that most projects cannot command a premium for physical diversity. When I worked for Hibernia Atlantic, our system had a clear diversity edge because it landed several hundred kilometers to the North of Bude at Southport, UK. But only a few banks in our customer base were willingness to pay a premium for it. In most deals I was forced to match the competitor's price and use physical diversity to break the tie.fff

For more details: https://www.telecompaper.com/news/softbank-to-establish-submarine-cable-landing-hubs-in-hokkaido-and-kyushu--1541424