I hate to be a stick in the mud, but once you have your Auckland to Wellington fiber, you will then need a second one to back it up for the times that someone dig's it up while putting in a new drain. And then getting across the cook straight etc etc.
info-structure. You go try and price up digging a trench (and getting approval for it!) from Auckland to Wellington, then come back and tell us how cheap you think your "kick ass" network will be.
$40million - it used to be $30m but time has made it a little more expensive. Route and technolgy don't influence much, they all work out the same. CHeck what TCL paid for their festoon, its about the same. but don't despair. 2 years ago I went and talked with one of our customers, a financial place, with a BIG national network and said "for $1Mill install and $1mill per year opex, I'll give you a fiber to AKL" - they threw me out.