Hawaiki kicks off five-month, multi-million dollar marine survey

Tuesday 9th August 2016

Hawaiki Submarine Cable, which plans to build a new trans-Pacific high speed internet cable, is mapping out the route for the 14,000 kilometre cable, which is expected to take at least five months and cost millions of dollars.

The cable will provide another link between New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii and mainland US, with options to include several South Pacific Islands, and is scheduled to be completed in mid-2018, the company said in a statement. Earlier this year Hawaiki signed a contract with TE SubCom to supply and install the cable, which will deliver more than 30 terrabits per second of capacity, providing competition to the Southern Cross Cable.

"We are extremely pleased to launch the marine route survey which will give us data necessary to safely and properly deploy the system in the coming months," Hawaiki chief executive Remi Galasso said. "We are confident that with our trusted supplier, TE SubCom, our cable will be delivered as planned in mid-2018, less than two years from now."

The government committed $65 million over 25 years to secure the cable in July 2014, following the failure of Pacific Fibre, which shut up shop in 2012 when it couldn't attract the $400 million it needed to fund its cable project.

The project is headed by Galasso, a former Alcatel-Lucent executive who founded Noumea-based telecommunications infrastructure company Intelia in 2005, investor and philanthropist Eoin Edgar and Malcolm Dick, who co-founded telecommunications firm CallPlus, which was sold a year ago for $250 million to Australia's M2 Group.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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