This will interest people.
Cost is estimated to be around 900 million NZ and to be operational by
2013. Not sure where it will land.
-JoelW
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lance Wiggs
Date: 11 March 2010 13:45
Subject: [members-discuss] Pacific Fibre
To: pag(a)listserver.internetnz.net.nz, InternetNZ Members Discussion
List
We are making Pacific Fibre public today. Here is the text of the
press release.
New Zealand businessmen propose project to build international fibre cable
Aim is unlimited high speed broadband for New Zealand and Australia
Pacific Fibre, an early stage international fibre venture founded by a
group including New Zealand businessmen Stephen Tindall, Sam Morgan
and Rod Drury, announced its plans today, aiming to break the digital
divide between New Zealand, Australia and the rest of the world.
Other founders include Mark Rushworth, former Vodafone Chief Marketing
Officer, technology industry veteran John Humphrey, and strategy
consultant and entrepreneur Lance Wiggs. Pacific Fibre is engaging in
early discussions with cornerstone investors and customers.
The group is looking to secure funding and build a 5.12 Terabits/sec
capacity fibre cable to be ready in 2013 connecting Australia, New
Zealand and the USA - the initial proposal is a cable which will
deliver five times the capacity of the existing Southern Cross system.
Sam Morgan commented: "We desperately need a cable that is not purely
based on profit maximisation, but on delivering unconstrained
international bandwidth to everybody, and so we've decided to see
whether we can do it ourselves.”
Stephen Tindall commented: “The New Zealand Institute identified
billions of dollars in economic potential by unleashing the internet,
and it is beyond time to address the issue. This is necessary and
basic infrastructure – we must decrease the distance between New
Zealand and the international markets. Doing so will be incredibly
valuable for New Zealand and Australian businesses and consumers. If
we are able to deliver on this cable this it could be as valuable to
our NZ economy as the quantum leap refrigerated ships were to our
export trade many years ago ”
"This is a bold vision which, as realists, we know will not be easy to
deliver, it will take a huge effort to complete, and has many risks.
While we have completed early feasibility work it is essential for
people to know we now need to determine the level of interest from
potential partners before we go to the next stage of a full business
case, risk assessment and proof of concept to take to investors and
bankers. We realise the risks are large but are prepared to push
through to the next stage. We have released this news today primarily
to ensure that any parties who are interested in this space have an
opportunity to speak with us during this early planning phase."
Pacific Fibre's ambitious aim is to deliver the highest capacity and
lowest latency international internet service to Australia and New
Zealand by connecting Australia and New Zealand to the USA with 13,000
km of cable. The cable from New Zealand to the USA would be direct,
substantially reducing the distance versus existing cables, and thus
delivering lower latency, or lag, associated with the cable. The
planned cable would also offer potential for branching units to
provide connectivity to several Pacific islands.
Rod Drury commented: "We are seeing a growing digital divide between
New Zealand and the rest of the world. We need this infrastructure if
we are serious about growing international businesses from New
Zealand.
“The introduction of a new cable would drive competition and capacity
in the international bandwidth market, building on the success of the
Southern Cross cable, which was critical for New Zealand when it was
built 10 years ago. This proposed cable would provide internet service
providers and large and small businesses with a major boost in
capacity and speed, but also give the extra redundancy that another
cable provides.”
Mark Rushworth commented: “We have a lot of work to do to make this
happen and I am excited by the challenge. With 90% of New Zealand
internet traffic going offshore, a major boost in international
capacity is needed to fix the 7pm bottleneck. The situation is bad now
and only going to get worse as the New Zealand Ultra-Fast Broadband
initiative and the Australian National Broadband Network start
delivering fibre to the premise."
“We are seeing a huge increase in demand from consumers and businesses
driven by the use of video which is increasing in resolution and use.
Businesses love very high resolution multi party video conferencing -
all the way up to telepresence systems, while grandparents expect to
be able to Skype video their grandchildren - and that too will be in
HD or better. But mostly we want to unleash that creative talent New
Zealand has, and be on a level footing with the rest of the world.”
The current proposed cable configuration would be 13,000 km long, and
have two fibre pairs with 64 wavelengths (lambdas) each at 40
Gigabits/sec per lambda. The maximum lit capacity initially would be
5.12 Terabits/sec, but would be upgradeable to over 12 Terabits/sec as
the emerging 100 Gbit/sec per lambda technology becomes reality. The
newer cable and repeater technology that Pacific Fibre proposes to use
will be substantially more easily upgradeable than that of existing
cables.
Pacific Fibre will seek to work alongside existing industry players
and also seek to aggregate any existing initiatives into a unified
project.
Mr Rushworth commented: “We are delighted by the early interest in
Pacific Fibre from industry players and financial backers. We believe
a unified approach to building the cable is good news for the entire
telecommunications industry, including Telecom, who will finally be
able to deliver innovative new services expected as normal in other
countries."
For more information please contact:
Mark Rushworth
Mark.Rushworth(a)PacificFibre.net
+64 21 244 0777
www.pacificfibre.net
Twitter.com/PacificFibre
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