On 1/08/2012, at 4:22 PM, Matthew Moyle-Croft
Main issue is protection. If you buy AKL->SYD->Rest of World then you still have to buy matching SCCN in order to protect that capacity. So, SCCN won't get cheaper as they know you have to buy them anyway. PacFibre by building both ways allowed you to protect either leg using other non-SCCN capacity.
One could potentially build Auckland->Sydney and Invercargill->Melbourne, in order to get better access to Aus content. It's about 50-100km difference in distance as the crow flies. I imagine protected capacity over that (with on-land transport over existing networks) would be much cheaper than protected capacity over SCCN. That gets NZ hooked up to a large amount of content fairly cheaply and would lessen the need for capacity to the US via SCCN. Of course, I think they'd get in trouble if they so drastically altered their business plan. -- Nathan Ward