Hawaikii Cable Limited has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with regional economic development agency Northland Inc to build an undersea fibre optic cable that will connect New Zealand to Australia, Hawaii and the west coast of the United States.
The US$350 million cable will carry huge amounts of data between the countries and will be based on 100 gigabits per second for wavelength and 20 terabits per second for design capacity. It also has a design life for 25 years.
The cable will be built in Whangarei and will run along a cable landing station in Northland to connect overseas. This is New Zealand’s second trans-Pacific cable.
The cable system could also potentially connect to some Pacific islands located near by the cable route, which include Norfolk, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, Wallis, Samoa and American Samoa.
“This MoU has the potential to bring direct and indirect benefits worth millions to Northland’s local economy alone,” Northland Inc chairman Colin Mitten said in a statement.
“All the ingredients necessary for the development of a data centre industry, including political stability, a temperate climate, green power and educated workforce are already available here. The missing link is submarine cable diversity with a direct access to the United States,” Hawaiki Cable Limited CEO Rémi Galasso said in a statement.
The cable is expected to be operational by autumn 2015, with MoU to be finalised within the next few months.