Pacific Fibre announces partner

Move reduces cost of undersea fibre cable

Pacific Fibre has formed a partnership with Pacnet to build a second international undersea fibre-optic cable linking New Zealand, Australia and the US.

Pacnet owns and operates the largest privately owned cable network in the Asia Pacific region — a 36,800km network between Aisa and North America. The company has headquarters in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Pacific Fibre was formed in March this year and is backed by entrepreneurs Rod Drury, Sam Morgan and Stephen Tindall. It plans to build a 13,600km cable with two fibre pairs with 64 wavelengths per fibre pair and a capacity of up to 5.12 terabits per second (Tbit/s).

“The new cable will be built on a partnership model that 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 media statement reads.

The cost of the cable is now estimated at $US 400 million ($NZ 546 million), which is less than first forecast at the company's launch, when Pacific Fibre CEO Mark Rushworth put the price tag at $NZ 900 million.

Also changed is the cable map on Pacific Fibre's website. It had originally featured a second route across Australia and up to Asia, with Rushworth indicating at the time that this could be a second stage in the cable build. But this has now disappeared and a new map has been posted on the Pacific Fibre website.