The Government has earmarked $15 million for an international internet cable between New Zealand, Australia and the United States.
As well as the $15m contribution, the Government would also commit to being an anchor customer on a new cable fit for research or education purposes, Communications and Information Technology Minister Amy Adams said.
Ms Adams is calling for expressions of interest from companies considering building a cable, she said in a statement today.
The cable would need to meet requirements of education and research communities, as well as commercial traffic.
"To ensure we have sufficient international capacity in the medium to long term, the Government is making a $15 million contribution available, and would commit to an anchor tenancy on a new cable for research and education purposes,'' she said.
"In order to take part in global research projects, our research and education communities need dedicated capacity that can handle huge data volumes, and provide high levels of reliability.
"International, collaborative projects are characterised by intermittent, high-throughput, multi-terabit data flows that may last for days.
"Building a new cable will further increase the resilience of New Zealand's international telecommunications links and also introduce more competition on the route, as well as providing additional capacity,'' Ms Adams said.
This is a shift in tone from when Pacific Fibre abandoned plans for its cable to the US last year because of funding issues. At that time Economic
Development Minister Steven Joyce said there was no issue with capacity on the Southern Cross cable.
Pacific Fibre - backed by Facebook billionaire Peter Thiel, Trade Me Founder Sam Morgan and Xero's Rod Drury _ hoped to rival the Southern Cross
Cable Networks' pipe, which is the only link transporting internet traffic in and out of New Zealand. The second cable would bring competition to the market and bring down the price of international internet capacity, Pacific Fibre argued.
While Pacific Fibre no longer has a pipe in the works, another company - Hawaiki - is planning one.
The Auckland-based company is planning to build a 14-000km cable system between New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii and the US west coast, and said earlier this year that the project could be operating within two years.
TPG Telecom, an ASX-listed IT and internet company, has issued a letter of intent saying it plans to acquire fibre capacity on the Australia-US leg of Hawaiki's proposed cable system.
The main cable would also have branches running to Norfolk Island, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, Wallis, Samoa and American Samoa.
Ms Adams said Southern Cross is expected to meet New Zealand's capacity needs until 2020.
- by Hamish Fletcher of The New Zealand Herald
