An Australian company has teamed up with a New Zealand state-run enterprise on a project which will see a new, submarine, private fibre optic cable that will link Australia and New Zealand.
An Australian company and a NZ government owned business have joined up to provide an undersea fibre optic cable between the two countries. Photo: Fibre Optic. Credit: BigRiz/Wikipedia
PIPE International (Australia) Pty Ltd (a wholly-owned subsidiary of PIPE Networks Limited) entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the New Zealand government -owned Kordia Group Ltd to provide the cable which the two hope to have operational by 2010.
"This announcement is a shot in the arm for telecommunications in New Zealand and I am delighted to be working with Kordia to resolve the chronic bandwidth issues facing all New Zealanders," PIPE Networks Managing Director Bevan Slattery said.
He added that New Zealanders will get better internet service once the cable is installed.
Kordia CEO Geoff Hunt said he was delighted to be part of the agreement saying the undersea cable could be vital to New Zealand's future economic transformation.
"This MoU signals a change for New Zealand that will help boost our economy and enable us to compete globally by providing competition on the trans-Tasman capacity route. It also complements the government's commitment to deliver world-class broadband to all New Zealanders: we're upping the ante at home and offshore," Mr Hunt said.
The cable will link from Sydney to the west coast of the North Island, near Auckland and will link up with the Sydney-Guam cable, also being built by PIPE Networks. Guam acts as a regional hub linking to Asia and the United States.
Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand (TUANZ) chief executive Ernie Newman said to AAP the link would be beneficial in that it would end the current monopoly enjoyed by Southern Cross Cable Networks.
"We don't really know what the Southern Cross' capacity is because they're quite coy about it, there's (currently) no reason for alarm bells, but extra cable means extra capability," he said. "We were hoping someone would come up with the initiative...I don't remember anyone else looking at connectivity".
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