Plans for a new 3,000 km submarine cable project linking New Zealand and Sydney and Melbourne in Australia have been announced by Intelia New Zealand.
TE WAIPOUNAMU, named in reference to the Maori name of the South Island of New Zealand, will include a total of 16 fiber pairs broken down as follow:
4 fiber pairs from Invercargill to Australia offering a total capacity of 120 Tbps 12 fiber pairs between Sydney and Melbourne allowing an alternative and very competitive backhauling option between the two largest cities of Australia with a total capacity of 35 Tbps per fiber pair.
“Te Waipounamu cable is going to be a game changer for the connectivity of NZ South Island. It will also unlock the huge potential of Southland in term of sustainable data storage. It’s a fantastic challenge for our team and we are proud to continue contributing to New Zealand digital development” declared Rémi Galasso, founder of Intelia NZ.
“Te Waipounamu cable represent a significant investment of NZD 160 million that will be funded by a mix of equity, debt and capacity contract commitments from major industry players both in Australia and New Zealand” added Perrine DHALLUIN, Director at Intelia NZ.
“Our plan is to finalize a supplier contract by April 2024 and start in parallel the permitting process in order to target a system commissioning by 2026” added Georges Krebs, Chief Technical Officer at Intelia NZ.
