wiredinUSA September 2013

Nawaz Sharif

New cable for New Zealand

Pakistan to connect with China

Hawaiki has signed an agreement with Northland Inc, to bring a new $350m submarine cable to the Whangarei, New Zealand, area. Hawaiki commits to bring its cable ashore in the region and to provide the necessary infrastructure. The cable is expected to be operational within two years, and will become the second fiber optic cable network to link New Zealand with the rest of the world. The submarine system will carry data between Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and the west coast of the United States. Northlandwill aid both the landing and the funding of the cable, including sourcing local investors and promoting funding through the Northland regional council’s investment and growth reserve. Hawaiki's CEO, Rémi Galasso, said the system, which has a design life of 25 years, will be based on 100Gbps wavelength technology and deliver over 20Tbps of design capacity – equivalent to around 468 DVDs a second, and it is hoped that as well as accelerating the development of a potentially lucrative data center industry in the country, it will also ultimately lead to cheaper Internet access.

Pakistan will lay alternative optic fiber international backbone through China on the route of the Karakoram Highway. The 820km project will cost $44 million and is planned to reduce Pakistan’s dependence on the undersea cables SEA-ME-WE 3 and 4 and IMEWE. It will also provide communication security and boost telecom revenues. The agreement between China and Pakistanwas signedduring the recent visit of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to China. The fiber will be laid between Rawalpindi and Khunjarab and will be completed in two years. Chinese telecom firm Huawei has been given the contract. Observers of the telecom sector consider that Pakistan’s dependence on existing arrangements is not only a risk but also entails security concerns. Voice/data and Internet trafficcanbemonitoredand easily disrupted. To offset such a threat, this project will forge a link between Pakistan and the Trans-Asia Europe (TAE) cable in China, which would enable both Pakistan and China to have alternative routes for international telecom traffic.

wiredInUSA - September 2013

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