Australia's second largest ISP, iiNet, has signed a letter of intent to acquire capacity over the upcoming 14,000km Hawaiki subsea cable system.
iiNet announced it has lined up a “multi-million dollar deal” to secure fiber capacity over the Australia-to-US and Australia-to-New Zealand legs of the system. Both companies expect to sign a final agreement within a few weeks.
“Spectrum ownership on submarine cables presents a unique opportunity to bring even more diversity to our international network, reduce ongoing costs per gigabyte and enhance our customers’ experience,” iiNet CEO Michael Malone said.
The cable system is being deployed by New Zealand's Hawaiki Cable Limited. It is scheduled for completion in late 2015. The system will connect to the US via Hawaii, and will likely branch to Fiji, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Samoa, American Samoa, Norfolk and Wallis Island.
It will have an initial design capacity of up to 3 Tbps, upgradeable to 10 Tbps per fiber pair.
iiNet rival TPG Telecom in August announced its own “multi-million dollar deal” to lease capacity over the cable. A month later Hawaiki contracted TE SubCom to supply and install the cable.
Various New Zealand companies have been attempting to build a second international link out of the nation for years. Based on the company's wins so far, the Hawaiki project looks on course to succeed.