Subsea Cable Class of 2027: JAKO

JAKO is a high capacity cable connecting Korea and Japan via a Busan, Korea, and a Fukuoka, Japan landing. Busan is a major Korean cable landing spot. Nine cables including JAKO land in Busan. The cable's consortium consists of Microsoft, Amazon, Arteria (important Japanese back haul carrier), and the Korean Dreamline company. Dreamline is a Korean carrier that provides tower services, metro and long haul connectivity.

It is increasingly common for hyperscalers to team up with competitive carriers in Asia because the regional PTTs are viewed as difficult, slow to make decisions, and too concerned about protecting their home turf. Uncooperative is hyperscaler diplomatic language to describe the telecom incumbents. NTT is an exception to this generalization.

Obviously this cable reflects Microsoft and Amazon's cloud and AI ambitions. No public information is available on the number of fibre pairs. Given the fixed costs associated with cable deployment and rapidly growing traffic, I speculate the cable will be 16 to 24 fibre pairs and repeatered. If you want POP-to-POP wholesale capacity on this cable, Arteria is the main supplier. It has announced it will use its Jako capacity together with its extensive Japanese backbone to provide Layer 1 services between the key Korean and Japanese carrier neutral data centers. 

Map of the Fibre Optic JAKO Subsea Cable


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