Northland excited as NZ-US internet cable rolls off the production line

Manufacturing has started of a 14,000 kilometre internet cable that will link New Zealand and Australia to the United States.

The Auckland company behind the investment, Hawaiki Cable, said United States contractor TE SubCom had made the first 1000km of the fibre-optic cable and the construction of its undersea repeaters had also begun.

Hawaiki founder and chief executive Remi Galasso forecast the $500 million cable would encourage more US technology businesses to set up in New Zealand and deliver an economic fillip to Northland where the cable will land.

The Southern Cross Cable, half owned by Spark, is the only cable directly linking New Zealand to the US, but the development appears the surest sign yet that its monopoly on the route is about to be broken.

Bayleys in Whangarei said in a newsletter that the cable could be "a game-changer for employment and therefore demand for housing in the region".

The landing point for the cable at Mangawhai, half way between Whangarei and Warkworth, could provide an "economic shot-in-the-arm for the broader area, with complementary industries such as call centres and other related IT groups potentially setting up operations in the area", it said.

Galasso said Northland was a good place for data centres as it offered "massive power sources including geothermal".

"Hawaiki certainly helps open up a number of potential options to the region that wouldn't be available otherwise," he said.

Previous milestones for Hawaiki included an announcement in April that it had secured financing for the cable – which did not convince some sceptics – and the start of a marine survey by a former New Zealand warship in July.

Other strongly positive signs have been a customer agreement with Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of the US retail giant Amazon, and a multimillion dollar advance from Crown-owned research network operator Reannz.

But it appears Hawaiki may have missed out on government-funding to put in place links on the cable to the Cook Islands and Niue.

A new map released by Hawaiki indicated the cable would include branching units to connect Tonga, Fiji and New Caledonia, as well as a previously-confirmed leg to American Samoa.

However, it showed no connections for Niue, the Cook Islands or Tokelau.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) announced a plan in February, in conjunction with Pacific Island leaders, to improve connectivity to the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau and French Polynesia.

But Galasso said earlier this year that Hawaiki would need to know by the end of June this year whether to include branching points to the islands covered by the MFAT-led initiative.

Galasso would not comment on the status of any discussions.

The obvious alternatives would be for the islands to connect to the Southern Cross Cable via the proposed US$57m (NZ$80m)Tui-Samoa cable, which will link Apia to Fiji, or to Hawaiki's cable via American Samoa.

The former option was proposed by Southern Cross chief executive Anthony Briscoe in March.

TE SubCom vice president Aaron Stucki said in a statement released by Hawaiki that the manufacturing of the Hawaiki cable was moving forward as planned and it was on schedule to have the cable in service by the middle of 2018.

 Fairfax