The news comes ahead of 2020 Tokyo Games which is driving increasing numbers of domestic and international mobile subscribers travelling in and out of the country. Additionally, the expansion is underscored by the growing demand for high-capacity connectivity between the Asia-Pacific region and the rest of the world.
“Japan is one of several territories in Asia which is leading the deployment of 5G and growing its Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. This development requires reliable, high-quality and low-latency connectivity, and services which can support large increase in the cellular traffic and number of devices,” said Malcolm Chan (pictured), managing director of Asia-Pacific at BICS. “Expanding our backbone in the region was therefore an important step to meet future demands, especially in light of the number of visitors expected to travel to Japan next year for the Tokyo 2020 Games.”
The expansion includes the deployment of a second point of presence (PoP) in Tokyo, which connects to the local internet exchange points for BICS’ IP-based services. This will reduce latency, improve end-to-end quality while directly connecting local customers to BICS’ global network infrastructure. The PoP deployment also minimises the cost for BICS’ customers by enhancing local connectivity.
“Connecting nations like Japan – which is only accessible via submarine systems – with the rest of the world remains a challenge especially in terms of capacity, cost and quality,” continued Chan. “Due to BICS’ active footprint in the APAC region and global infrastructure, we’ve been able to upgrade capacity and connectivity in Japan and offer higher quality services at competitive prices. With the service now live, benefits are already being recognized by operators, subscribers and IoT businesses – all of which can feel confident that our global network will support their future connectivity needs too.”
BICS has also extended its existing network infrastructure in the region with a new route from Hong Kong to Japan, and from Japan to Los Angeles, this has resulted in a tenfold increase in connectivity and has significantly reduced latency along this route.
Across its European footprint BICS launched five new PoPs back in October of this year.
