The international connectivity of New
Zealand will be improved and enhanced with the commercial launch of the new
trans-Pacific Hawaiki
Cable.
According to the report
released by the New
Zealand Government, the construction of the fibre optic deep-sea
Hawaiki Cable system took 27 months. Broadcasting, Communications and Digital
Media Minister Clare Curran has welcomed the system that now commercially
operational, linking New Zealand, Australia, part of the Pacific and the United
States.
Minister Curran explained that this new
15,000 kilometre cable improves capacity, competition and resilience and sets New
Zealand up for the future.
This is good news for the consumers and
businesses that are hungry for more and more data. This will provide them with
a faster and better internet. It will also mean fewer bottlenecks, particularly
when data is being streamed from overseas.
She added that the existence of the Hawaiki
Cable complements the country’s growing domestic infrastructure and provides
greater resilience during disasters. This will give New Zealand an additional
physical data link to the rest of the world, which takes a different route than
other existing cables.
An initial NZ$ 15 million of capital was
allocated by the NZ Government in support of the Hawaiki Cable. This is a part
of the tenancy contract between Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network
(REANNZ)
Minister Clare Curran discussed the
benefits of the cable. It brings 43 Terabits per second of new capacity to the
Pacific region, which is several times the current levels of Australia and New
Zealand combined. Moreover, there are provisions for connections with other
Pacific nations. American Samoa, for instance, is already connected to the
cable.
She concluded that having this cable also
meant that data intensive research can be easily transferred anywhere in the
world. It is a faster and bigger internet connection to the rest of the world,
which can support bandwidth-hungry applications such as cloud services and
real-time content delivery.
