New cable to connect Australia and New Zealand

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 17 January 2012 17:57

IT Industry - Strategy

Huawei Marine has announced that it will undertake a seabed survey for the planned Optikor cable to link Australia and New Zealand by the end of 2103.

Huawei's client is Axin limited - a company that, according to Huawei Marine's press release "was founded in 2010, is fully invested by the Sino Telecommunication, and plays major role in the national broad band project of New Zealand."

Despite this a Google search revealed no information on the company and the only references we could find to Sino Telecommunication were to 'China Rail - Sino Telecommunication', all about ten years. When asked for a contact for Axin, Huawei Marine provided the name of Robin Lee - with a hotmail email address.  He had not responded at press time.

A press report in the Dominion Post described Lee as the chairman of Axin and reported him as saying that the financial backers of the proposed cable were he and other individual investors living in New Zealand and Hong Kong.

According to Huawei Marine "This new trans-Tasman link, which is set to be completed by the end of 2013, will be more than 3,000km in length and will connect Sydney, Australia with South Island and North Island, New Zealand. Initially designed to provide a capacity of 120Gbps with one fibre pair, the link will eventually provide 6.4 Tbps with two fibre pairs. This solution will address the large capacity requirements in the region and become the main broadband solution provider between Australia and New Zealand."

However Optikor will face stiff competition from incumbent, Southern Cross - which perhaps not co-incidentally has just announced a 44 percent price reduction.