New data cable to Hawaii planned

France's Alcatel-Lucent says it has signed a contract with Spain's Amper SA to roll out a new submarine cable system to connect New Zealand with Hawaii by 2018.

Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, the undersea cables subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, and the Amper SA unit, Bluesky Pacific Group, will build the system, which will span more than 9700 km across the Pacific, the companies said in a statement.

The system will link New Zealand and Hawaii using the latest submarine cable technology, providing capacity and redundancy in the region to address increased traffic requirements as mobile broadband and the provision of fibre access to homes and businesses.

The system, named Moana Cable, will have two main segments. The first, based on two fibre pairs, will connect New Zealand to Hawaii, serving Samoa and American Samoa and enhancing route diversity for New Zealand. The second, based on one fibre pair, will link the Cook Islands to the Samoa hub over 1700 km.

The Moana Cable is also designed to accommodate the connection of additional Pacific island nations such as Niue, Tokelau and Tonga, which lie in close proximity to the New Zealand-to-Hawaii trunk, as well as French Polynesia on the East near the Cook Islands, the companies said.

Jaime Espinosa de los Monteros, Amper chief executive and Moana Cable Chairman, said Amper's investment in the cable would be funded internally through existing free cash flow generated by Bluesky. Bluesky is a regional telecommunications provider in the Pacific operating in Samoa, American Samoa, Cook Islands and New Zealand.

 

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