Pacnet joins Pacific Fibre deal
New Zealand’s Pacnet has waded into the Pacific Fibre project to help fund the Trans-Pacific sub-sea cable that aims to boost connectivity between Australia, New Zealand and the US.
The project is expected to cost somewhere in the region of NZ$548 million and will see 13,600km of cable stretch between Sydney, Auckland and Los Angeles, delivering those much-demanded lower latency connections we all dream of.
“As Australia and New Zealand look towards deploying national broadband networks that will raise broadband penetration and access speeds, this new cable that we are building with Pacific Fibre will deliver the enhanced international connectivity that is essential to support these broadband initiatives,” said Bill Barney, Chief Executive Officer of Pacnet. “This investment is also an integral part of our overall strategy to expand our subsea cable infrastructure into the Australasia region, to complement our pan-Asian and Trans-Pacific network coverage and boost broadband connectivity into Asia.”
Pacific Fibre CEO, Mark Rushwort, added “It’s great to have Pacnet join us as equal partners. This even further validates the need for a new cable to Australia and New Zealand, and will ensure the success of the Pacific Fibre system. Pacnet has done this before as the largest investor within Unity cable group, and we are already benefiting from working with them. We are also very happy to announce a further reduction in our estimated system build costs to around US$400m.”
The partnership model allows Pacnet and Pacific Fibre to each own and operate a fibre pair on the new cable system, but share responsibility for the cable supply contract as well as operations and maintenance costs.
The new cable is expected to be ready for service in 2013.
