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 woul...