On 11/11/2012 9:36 PM, Tony Wicks wrote:
1. All major cable systems in in this country are commercial, this means they must generate a return for the shareholders at some point.
This thread started with the premise that there is value for the nation in having geographic diversity, and recognizing this is not likely to arise from a purely commercially driven design, the Government maybe should be involved to offset additional costs in order to make this happen.
2. It is pointless bringing a cable into a landing station anywhere that does not have significant terrestrial fibre path available. As it stands it is not uncommon for current transit providers to only pick up from Northcote as Whenuapai has only Telecom/Chorus, TelstraClear and Vector fibre available. Some of the suggested landing sites wouldn't even have existing access to dial-up !
My feeling was (not being an expert on this clearly) that landing a cable from Sydney somewhere in the Waikato would be workable and probably provide enough diversity. It can pass right through Hamilton, at which there's enough fiber. Also this is pretty much the population center of NZ so from a capacity stand point it works well too. In theory national providers have enough capacity between Southern Cross in Auckland and the Waikato to feed the >50% of the population that's south of there, so that capacity is there, it's just now more traffic would potentially flow in the reverse from the Waikato to feed the <50% of the population in AKL.
Points 1,2,3 and 4 mean unless the government is going to invest two or three of hundred million (with no expected commercial return) into a new cable the only viable landing point for cables in into Auckland
That would be the idea, maybe not 200-300 million though, that's a lot! The thought of NZ being wiped offline by a catastrophic event may seem bit fantastic, but it would be really really bad news if it happened. A few days may not be the end of the world, but weeks or months could be be seriously damaging.