Tobishima, Japan

Tobishima, Japan: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Tobishima is a village in Ama District, Aichi Prefecture, situated in the Tōkai region of Japan. As a coastal settlement, it forms part of Japan's broader submarine cable infrastructure, which spans 51 cables across 68 landing points nationwide. One submarine cable lands at Tobishima, connecting it to Japan's domestic undersea network.

The single cable serving Tobishima, the Yuza-Tobishima cable, links two points within Japan, making this landing point a node in an intra-national submarine cable corridor rather than an intercontinental or international one. While Tobishima hosts fewer cables than many of Japan's larger landing points, its participation in the domestic cable network reflects the country's extensive use of undersea links to connect its many coastal and island communities.

Cables Landing at Tobishima

Yuza-Tobishima is a short domestic submarine cable measuring 31 kilometres in length, with a ready-for-service (RFS) date of 2022, noted as a draft status. The cable connects two landing points within Japan, with Tobishima at one terminus. Its compact length places it well below the Japanese average cable length of 5,696 kilometres, underscoring its role as a near-shore, intra-country link rather than a long-distance international route.

Regional Context

Among Japan's 68 submarine cable landing points, Tobishima hosts one cable, placing it in the upper 68 percent of landing points by cable count — a figure that reflects how many Japanese landing points serve similarly specialised or localised connectivity functions. By comparison, major hubs such as Shima (12 cables), Maruyama (9 cables), and Chikura (8 cables) handle significantly larger volumes of cable traffic, while Tobishima sits closer in scale to other single- or limited-cable landing points across the country. Landing points such as Hachijo, Minamiboso, and Naha, each serving four cables, represent a mid-tier tier above Tobishima in terms of cable count.

Network Role

Tobishima functions as a single-cable terminus within Japan's domestic submarine cable graph, served exclusively by the Yuza-Tobishima cable. Its role is therefore a targeted, point-to-point one: providing a direct undersea link between its location in Aichi Prefecture and another Japanese landing point, rather than acting as a multi-cable hub routing traffic across international boundaries. The cable's short 31-kilometre span suggests it serves a specific local or regional connectivity requirement within the Tōkai coastal area.

Within Japan's wider submarine cable network, the presence of a landing point at Tobishima illustrates how the country distributes undersea connectivity across a range of community scales, from large international exchange hubs down to compact domestic links serving individual villages and districts. This distribution across 68 landing points reflects the geographic and demographic diversity of Japan's coastline.