Interest in Hawaiki's new 14,000 km trans-Pacific cable continues to grow, with cable developer and owner Hawaiki Cable announcing another customer signature.
New Zealand ISP Orcon has confirmed its intention to acquire international bandwidth on the New Zealand/Australia-US segments of the Hawaiki submarine cable system.
The letter of intent outlines a multi-million dollar deal with Orcon, who was acquired by a consortium of local businesspeople earlier this year, and will see the ISP purchase 40Gbps capacity in year one, with substantial increases planned in additional years, that it said will help to unlock the potential of New Zealand's broadband market.
As reported by Fibre Systems, the cable is scheduled for completion in late 2015 and will link New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii to the US west coast.
Orcon CEO Greg McAlister said : 'The country's bandwidth requirements are more than doubling year-on-year, and with the growth of video services, and proliferation of devices, this growth rate could even increase.
'We are really excited to be able to work with a new cable provider to secure a substantial amount of bandwidth. In fact, it's imperative to New Zealand’s development that we have a second cable network. Competition leads to better prices, and we'll be able to offer these in turn to our customers.'