Fwd: [members-discuss] Pacific Fibre
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 <lance(a)lancewiggs.com> Date: 11 March 2010 13:45 Subject: [members-discuss] Pacific Fibre To: pag(a)listserver.internetnz.net.nz, InternetNZ Members Discussion List <members-discuss(a)internetnz.net.nz> 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 _______________________________________________ members-discuss mailing list members-discuss(a)internetnz.net.nz http://listserver.internetnz.net.nz/mailman/listinfo/members-discuss
On 2010-03-10, at 20:12, Joel Wiramu Pauling wrote:
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.
That does seem interesting. However, if the goal is "unlimited high speed broadband for NZ and Australia" then it seems like it's only part of the puzzle -- the last mile still has to be dealt with. Joe
Without the third leg (AU or Asia to USA) of the triangle (from the diagram on the website) it is of limited usefulness IMHO. I would have thought looking at the extremely successful design of SC would have been a good place to start. -----Original Message----- From: nznog-bounces(a)list.waikato.ac.nz [mailto:nznog-bounces(a)list.waikato.ac.nz] On Behalf Of Joe Abley Sent: Thursday, 11 March 2010 2:16 p.m. To: Joel Wiramu Pauling Cc: nznog Subject: Re: [nznog] Fwd: [members-discuss] Pacific Fibre On 2010-03-10, at 20:12, Joel Wiramu Pauling wrote:
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.
That does seem interesting. However, if the goal is "unlimited high speed broadband for NZ and Australia" then it seems like it's only part of the puzzle -- the last mile still has to be dealt with. Joe _______________________________________________ NZNOG mailing list NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog The information contained in this e-mail is confidential and may be legally privileged. If you have received it in error, you may not read, use, copy or disclose this email. If you are not the intended recipient, please let us know by reply e-mail immediately and then delete this email from your system. We shall not be responsible for any changes to, or interception of, this email or any attachment after it leaves our information systems. We accept no responsibility for viruses or defects in this email or any attachments.
Looks to me like they are expecting the asianet com/optus/singtel link up to singapore from OZ to be providing that. Just a guess. On 11 March 2010 14:53, Tony Wicks <Tony.Wicks(a)vector.co.nz> wrote:
Without the third leg (AU or Asia to USA) of the triangle (from the diagram on the website) it is of limited usefulness IMHO. I would have thought looking at the extremely successful design of SC would have been a good place to start.
-----Original Message----- From: nznog-bounces(a)list.waikato.ac.nz [mailto:nznog-bounces(a)list.waikato.ac.nz] On Behalf Of Joe Abley Sent: Thursday, 11 March 2010 2:16 p.m. To: Joel Wiramu Pauling Cc: nznog Subject: Re: [nznog] Fwd: [members-discuss] Pacific Fibre
On 2010-03-10, at 20:12, Joel Wiramu Pauling wrote:
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.
That does seem interesting. However, if the goal is "unlimited high speed broadband for NZ and Australia" then it seems like it's only part of the puzzle -- the last mile still has to be dealt with.
Joe _______________________________________________ NZNOG mailing list NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog
The information contained in this e-mail is confidential and may be legally privileged. If you have received it in error, you may not read, use, copy or disclose this email. If you are not the intended recipient, please let us know by reply e-mail immediately and then delete this email from your system. We shall not be responsible for any changes to, or interception of, this email or any attachment after it leaves our information systems. We accept no responsibility for viruses or defects in this email or any attachments. _______________________________________________ NZNOG mailing list NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog
Hi Tony, I don't really agree - there's no need to purchase a full protect path from a single system. SCCN and previously the PacRim cables have conditioned us to do so, but it's not necessary.
From Australia you have:
SCCN PPC1 AJC Endeavour as well as the new Perth to Singapore with Matrix/NextGen cable which gives you a very diverse ring via AAG (admittedly with Hawaii in the loop as well). PPC1/AJC can be combined with AAG at Guam as well for lower latency. So you can easily build a system either at the SDH, Wave or IP levels to provide protection to any capacity in the region. My point is that there are now enough options that there is significant flexibility with respect to how you might go about building your own protection. Especially given that a properly run network would attempt to purchase from as many cables as possible in order to ensure they have this protection. Internode currently purchases from four cable systems directly out of Australia in order to try and reduce our risk against system failure. MMC On 11/03/2010, at 12:23 PM, Tony Wicks wrote: Without the third leg (AU or Asia to USA) of the triangle (from the diagram on the website) it is of limited usefulness IMHO. I would have thought looking at the extremely successful design of SC would have been a good place to start. -----Original Message----- From: nznog-bounces(a)list.waikato.ac.nz<mailto:nznog-bounces(a)list.waikato.ac.nz> [mailto:nznog-bounces(a)list.waikato.ac.nz] On Behalf Of Joe Abley Sent: Thursday, 11 March 2010 2:16 p.m. To: Joel Wiramu Pauling Cc: nznog Subject: Re: [nznog] Fwd: [members-discuss] Pacific Fibre On 2010-03-10, at 20:12, Joel Wiramu Pauling wrote: 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. That does seem interesting. However, if the goal is "unlimited high speed broadband for NZ and Australia" then it seems like it's only part of the puzzle -- the last mile still has to be dealt with. Joe _______________________________________________ NZNOG mailing list NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz<mailto:NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz> http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog The information contained in this e-mail is confidential and may be legally privileged. If you have received it in error, you may not read, use, copy or disclose this email. If you are not the intended recipient, please let us know by reply e-mail immediately and then delete this email from your system. We shall not be responsible for any changes to, or interception of, this email or any attachment after it leaves our information systems. We accept no responsibility for viruses or defects in this email or any attachments. _______________________________________________ NZNOG mailing list NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog -- Matthew Moyle-Croft Peering Manager and Team Lead - Commercial and DSLAMs Internode /Agile Level 5, 162 Grenfell Street, Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia Email: mmc(a)internode.com.au<mailto:mmc(a)internode.com.au> Web: http://www.on.net<http://www.on.net/> Direct: +61-8-8228-2909 Mobile: +61-419-900-366 Reception: +61-8-8228-2999 Fax: +61-8-8235-6909
On 11/03/2010, at 1:02 PM, Matthew Moyle-Croft wrote:
Hi Tony,
I don't really agree - there's no need to purchase a full protect path from a single system.
In other words you are providing "protection" via IS-IS rather than the SDH frame K bits (or whatever they called the end-to-end integrity bits in SDH systems). Quite frankly there are no telephony buyers left in the undersea cable market - its all IP, so saying that cable protection becomes an IP role is now a viable course of action, but you are also assuming that your buyers are all big enough to be in a position to purchase multiple unprotected IRUs on diverse cable systems. Again these days thats not a totally unreasonable assumption. So I agree with Mattheew - the days of buying fully protected 1+1 paths off a single cable system supplier are fading away, and the economics of building fully protected dual paths are a lot more challenging than putting in single path undersea systems. But there is a huge supply overhang in today's market of installed capacity in a number of areas, including to ANZ, and these kind of long term high capital volume investments all run a risk of market collapse through oversupply, as happened in the Northern Pacific 8 years back (I seem to recall it happened to a lesser extent on SC and AJC as well at the time, and IRU prices on both these systems were quite cheap back in the 2001 - 2005 period. I also suspect that it was SC attempting to extract too much money from Telstra in 2006 - 2007 that was a major motivation for the construction of Endeavour, but that is of course pure speculation on my part.) I would understand this particular project announcement more if this were part of a play by a few competitors to push SC into dropping their IRU prices. ("play nice with us or we'll go and spend $900 M of some bank's money!") If this is really a serious play to build another long haul ANZ - US undersea cable, and if it were my bank that was in the process underwriting yet another undersea cable project into an already over-supplied market that has a limited set of buyers, I'd be getting a tad concerned by now. Geoff - speaking purely and totally for himself, of course. (gosh! I've just done two postings to NZNOG in a few hours. Sorry - I'll shut up now for another year or two!)
On 11/03/2010, at 2:17 PM, Geoff Huston wrote:
On 11/03/2010, at 1:02 PM, Matthew Moyle-Croft wrote:
Hi Tony,
I don't really agree - there's no need to purchase a full protect path from a single system.
In other words you are providing "protection" via IS-IS rather than the SDH frame K bits (or whatever they called the end-to-end integrity bits in SDH systems).
Actually if you know what you're doing and buy the right product you can do SDH protection across different systems. But you're right -> it's an IP/MPLS world now. The product of choice is the wavelength to which you can attach any type of encapsulation method you want. In the rest-of-the-world the LAN PHY 10GE product is the one of choice. Especially in a world where you've got, say, 30-40 circuits across the Atlantic and SDH ports are just too expensive.
If this is really a serious play to build another long haul ANZ - US undersea cable, and if it were my bank that was in the process underwriting yet another undersea cable project into an already over-supplied market that has a limited set of buyers, I'd be getting a tad concerned by now.
You're right - there is no actual issue with the ABILITY to supply, only the fact that the market price for these assets are being kept unreasonably high in comparison to the actual cost of the underlying asset - ie. demand is being depressed because of the cost. The cost of IRUs on Pacific systems appears to have zero relation to the original cost or the money spent on upgrades. So, I think there is a market for another system on this path and it's a viable proposition. MMC -- Matthew Moyle-Croft Peering Manager and Team Lead - Commercial and DSLAMs Internode /Agile
From their website: "It will change the way we live, work and play. It will change everything".
Would Cisco have anything to do with this, perchance??? ;-) On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 2:12 PM, Joel Wiramu Pauling <aenertia(a)aenertia.net> wrote:
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 <lance(a)lancewiggs.com> Date: 11 March 2010 13:45 Subject: [members-discuss] Pacific Fibre To: pag(a)listserver.internetnz.net.nz, InternetNZ Members Discussion List <members-discuss(a)internetnz.net.nz>
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
_______________________________________________ members-discuss mailing list members-discuss(a)internetnz.net.nz http://listserver.internetnz.net.nz/mailman/listinfo/members-discuss _______________________________________________ NZNOG mailing list NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog
More blogging on the topic. Interview with Mark Rushworth http://idealog.co.nz/blog/peter-griffin/bigger-faster-more-productive
And some more info on GZNZ: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/7143 On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 4:42 PM, Joel Wiramu Pauling <aenertia(a)aenertia.net> wrote:
More blogging on the topic. Interview with Mark Rushworth
http://idealog.co.nz/blog/peter-griffin/bigger-faster-more-productive _______________________________________________ NZNOG mailing list NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog
participants (6)
-
Geoff Huston -
Joe Abley -
Joel Wiramu Pauling -
Matthew Moyle-Croft -
Robert Larsen -
Tony Wicks