The Japanese Strike Again: The New Intra-Asian Marine Cable (IAMC)

NTT and Mitsui Leasing have teamed up together with fibre optic cable manufacturer Sumitomo Corporation to fund a 16 fibre pair subsea cable costing $500 million. Design capacity is 320 Tbps. This is the second project on which NTT Data and Mitsui Leasing have cooperated. The high capacity 20 fibre pair Juno cable was the first project. It is unusual to see a large incumbent player like NTT undertaking a subsea cable project with a non-telecom company as co-owner. But the advantages are clear. Mitsui will contribute cash, but not play a major role in design, vendor selection or wholesale commercials. So it not only reduces NTT's risk by sharing funding requirements, but it gives NTT a free hand in decision making.

One lesson that has become perfectly clear is that large carrier consortiums increase the likelihood of deployment delays and lengthen the entire planning cycle because decisions require consensus. Moreover, the consensus requirement makes it difficult for new approaches or ideas to be accepted. Consensus encourages conventional thinking, not innovation. Imagine the challenge of getting 5 to 15 consortium representatives to agree on equipment vendors, network design, and commercial matters. I am sure META wanted to use copper as the main power material for 2Africa, but had to settle for just the Mediterranean segment using it because the carriers were uncomfortable. As a result of the potential decision quagmires, consortium membership size has steadily shrunk since 1995 with NTT's project with telecom outsider Mitsui the logical end point of this evolution, namely big carriers bringing on cash rich companies whose core operations are outside telecommunications. 

IAMC also exemplifies a recent trend towards linear cables augmented with multiple landing points to improve resiliency and lower end user latency by diverting traffic using wavelength routing to the shortest path. The branching unit is placed in deep ocean water off the continental shelf where the threat of ships causing damage is less likely. Since most cable outages occur on the continental shelf, the multiple landing branches improve resiliency by offering the possibility of rerouting traffic if a landing goes dark. Moreover, multiple well-spaced landings allow traffic flow to be tailored to point of destination. Latency is thereby reduced. If traffic is destined for Osaka, why not go directly there as opposed to routing everything through Tokyo? In the case of IAMC there will be three Japanese landings together with one Singapore and Malaysia landing. The Malaysia landing will enable an overland terrestrial path to Singapore in case the primary branch fails. In this design the cable landing stations on each side will be linked to each via fibre backhaul. This further enhances network uptime.

Geopolitics shapes IAMC's routing. China is insisting all cables traversing the South China Sea fall under its jurisdiction and must receive permits prior to deployment or repairs. So the cable skirts the South China Sea. The downside is pretty obvious. IAMC will spend more time in shallow coastal water where outages are more likely. This in turn means more costly maintenance contracts and higher construction costs because deep burial is a must in shallow water. I call this the Chinese cable tax. 

RFS is 2029 and NEC will likely win the construction tender. NTT is likely to sell some pairs on this system and a lot of quarter and half fibre pair spectrum to recoup some capex.