News: Pacific Fibre Promises Cheap Unlimited Broadband

A 13,000km high-speed link between New Zealand, Australia and the United States could deliver Kiwis with internet speeds faster than those provided by a tin can and a bit of string by 2013 if an ambitious plan by a local conglomerate goes ahead.

According to the NZ Herald, a group of prominent businesspeople including Sam Morgan, Sir Stephen Tindall and Rod Drury are behind a project known as ‘Pacific Fibre,’ which would provide a broadband connection five times faster than those currently available.

Costing around $900 million the service would provide 5.12 Terabits/sec of capacity in 2013, which would be upgradable to 12 Terabits/sec. According to their site, Pacific proposes to use repeater technology over 2 fibre pairs with 64 wavelengths per fibre pair and initial traffic capacity of 40 Gigabits/sec per wavelength. Repeaters will be more modern and closer together than those of the current Southern Cross connection, allowing for a much easier upgrade path to, initially, 100 Gigabits/sec per wavelength.

The project’s organisers claim the link will finally grant New Zealanders access to low-cost, uncapped broadband.

“”We hope to bring in extra capacity at a low price, which our carriers and ISP [internet service provider] customers can end up passing on to their customers, Pacific Fibre founder and former Vodafone executive, Mark Rushworth, told the Herald. “But mostly we want to unleash that creative talent New Zealand has, and be on a level footing with the rest of the world.”