Ads by Google Ads by Google

HAWAIKI GOES PUBLIC ON FRESH BID TO BUILD PACIFIC CABLE

Hawaiki Cable has publicly emerged as the latest player promising to build a trans-Pacific fibre optic cable after its plans were aired at last month's Polynesian Leaders' Group meeting.The company wants to build a two fibre pairs submarine cable system spanning the Pacific with an 8 terabit per second capacity, according to its website. The cable will link Auckland, Sydney and Hawaii, with connections on Norfolk Island, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, Wallis, Samoa and American Samoa.The new entrant enters the market after Pacific Fibre shut up shop when it failed to attract the $400 million it needed to fund the project, leaving Southern Cross Cable the only international cable network operating in New Zealand.The project is headed by Remi Galasso, a former Alcatel Lucent executive who founded Noumea-based telecommunications infrastructure company Intelia in 2005. Intelia designs and implements wire and wireless networks and backhaul, and can design and build IT systems.Not so newMost recently, Mr Galasso has been associated with SPIN (the South Pacific Islands Network), which also proposed to link New Caledonia to Auckland, Sydney and Hawaii.Spin made a public push during 2009, and numbered the French government among its investors. But the cable was never laid, and SPIN quietly faded from the scene.Hawaiki features a number of SPIN veterans in its ranks.