TE SubCom Picked for Pacific Fibre Build

Apparently, those New Zealanders remain quite serious about building that transpacific cable they’ve been pushing for more than a year.  According to Australian outlet itNews, they now have selected TE Connectivity to do the actual construction of the cable after tendering for bidders back in the Spring. TE Connectivity, which we once new as Tyco Electronics, operates TE SubCom, which we once knew as Tyco Telecom and which will surely be doing the actual work here.  The price tag, according to the report, could be as much as US$320M when they add it all up.

Pacific Fibre plans to build a low latency fiber link between Australia and California that will compete with the older but still very much in use Southern Cross cable system.  It is aimed at handling the anticipated bandwidth growth in the country, which has traditionally had a rather poor selection of routes to the rest of the internet due to a combination of remoteness and small, albeit bandwidth-hungry, population.  A few months ago, Pacific Fibre won their first anchor client, announcing a $75M contract with research and education network REANNZ.

When first announced, most of the comments I heard from others in the sector suggested substantial doubt that this cable would ever be built.  But having made it this far, it looks like they just might prove the naysayers wrong after all.

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Categories: Undersea cables