Pacific Fibre, which was planning the longest and most technically advanced undersea cable systems linking Australia, New Zealand and USA, has ceased operations after failing to raise the NZ$400m required to fund the cable build. The company had been planning a two-cable system linking Australia and New Zealand via a trans-Tasman cable, and another cable connecting New Zealand to the United States.
“The global investment market is undoubtedly difficult at the moment but we knew this was always going to be hard, regardless of our timing. We started Pacific Fibre because we know how important it is to connect New Zealanders to global markets. The high cost of broadband in New Zealand makes it hard to connect globally and it is this market failure, not a technical failure, that we tried hard to solve” said co-founder and director Rod Drury.
“We still cannot see how the government’s investment in UFB makes sense until the price of international bandwidth is greatly reduced” said Mr Drury.
The company noted that the cost of bandwidth to the U.S. from New Zealand as 5.8 times greater than the price paid by Australians, according to a 2011 study from the Australian telecommunication research company Market Clarity. http://www.pacificfibre.net/ 01-Aug-12
- In July 2011, Pacific Fibre awarded a supply contract to TE SubCom for its forthcoming 12,750km trans-Pacific cable.
