The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan, in order to promote the new coronal pneumonia epidemic response measures such as online teaching, will implement the plan to improve the optical fiber line in the country by two years, and strive to make the optical fiber network available to almost all households by the end of 2021.

Japan’s first and second supplementary budgets for fiscal year 2020 included a total of 53 billion yen (about 3.5 billion yuan) to support local governments and enterprises to improve optical fiber networks, hoping to provide the necessary communication foundation for uncovered areas as soon as possible. Since the optical fiber network will also become the basis of online procedures for medical treatment and administration, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan will provide up to 90% subsidies to support local governments and enterprises to improve the line.

As of the end of March 2019, there are still about 660,000 home fiber optic networks in Japan which have not yet been covered. The lowest coverage rate was 91.8% in Nagasaki, followed by Shimane at 92.0%, and Kagoshima at 93.3%.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications proposes a goal in June 2019, and plans to reduce the number of unanswered to 180,000 households by the end of 2023, to achieve coverage of almost all households. However, the impact of the new coronary pneumonia epidemic in home office and distance teaching highlighted the importance of network applications. The Japanese government decided to advance the fiber optic network coverage by two years.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications plans to use optical fiber networks and fixed telephone networks as “universal services” that must be provided uniformly throughout the country, and is discussing a mechanism to maintain equipment for a long time.

In addition, optical fiber is also the basis of 5G mobile communication system built by mobile phone companies. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications announced on the 16th that the 5G base station improvement plan was ahead of schedule, and it was expected that more than 210,000 base stations would be built by the end of 2023, which was about three times the original plan.