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 very high capacity Juno cable was the first project. It is unusual to see a large incumbent player like NTT doing a subsea cable project with a non-telecom company. But the advantages are clear. Mitsui will contribute cash, but not play a major role in design or wholesale commercials. So Mitsui 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 because decisions require consensus. Moreover, the consensus requirement leads to frequent vetos on new ideas among the ultra-cautious member representatives. Imagine the chall...
