Vodafone New Zealand and Pacific Fibre today announced that they have signed a multi-million dollar agreement for the supply of international bandwidth on the new Pacific Fibre cable system.
Under the 10-year deal, Vodafone will become Pacific Fibre’s biggest New Zealand customer.
Vodafone CEO Russell Stanners says Pacific Fibre is bringing much needed competition to the international bandwidth market.
“By partnering with an innovative, entrepreneurial business such as Pacific Fibre, we’re helping to break down the digital divide between New Zealand and the rest of the world.
“This deal will allow us to scale our customer offers over the next 10 years delivering the quality and quantity of capacity that our customers need now and into the future.
“This will help us to support New Zealanders’ online ambitions by making sure they can confidently connect to the world and the world can confidently connect to New Zealand.”
Mark Rushworth, Pacific Fibre CEO, says the Vodafone deal is its biggest to date, coming hard on the heels of a contract with REANNZ.
“Foundation customers such as Vodafone and REANNZ have championed the cause of ensuring international bandwidth competition. Their commitment will have a direct impact on bringing faster service and better rates to the region, helping to break the monopoly on capacity pricing into and out of New Zealand”.
Sir Stephen Tindall, Pacific Fibre co-founder, says building Pacific Fibre moves us closer to the US market.
“It’s like parking New Zealand off the West Coast of America, removing the tyranny of distance. It will help foster future innovation and greater economic development for New Zealand.”
Pacific Fibre’s undersea cable system will connect Australia to New Zealand, then to the USA and is scheduled to be launched by early 2014.
ENDS
For more information please contact:
Matt East
Vodafone NZ
+64 21 897 647
Mark Rushworth
Pacific Fibre CEO
mark.rushworth@pacificfibre.net
+64 21 244 0777
+64 9 2153308
About Pacific Fibre
Pacific Fibre was founded in 2010 and is intending to construct one of the longest and most technically advanced undersea cable systems. The Pacific Fibre cable will connect Australia and New Zealand to the United States, using leading and proven industry technology to achieve the fastest and most efficient route. Employing 40G technology, Pacific Fibre’s cable will, upon installation, deliver 10.24 Tbt/s of design capacity and, like all modern cable systems, should be capable of significant future increases in design capacity. Pacific Fibre is headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand.
Xero‘s Craig Walker reports from the USA on the internet gap between there and Australia and New Zealand. Xero founder and CEO Rod Drury is a founder and director of Pacific Fibre.
As part of Xero’s push into the US market my wife and I have made the move from Wellington to San Francisco to help start the US office. San Francisco is a great city – the home of Silicon Valley, one flight from NZ, a good timezone match for back home – so it made sense for San Francisco to be the initial base of US operations for Xero.
Being an always-connected personality the first thing I did was to get an Internet connection into our apartment. I chose WebPass because they offer extremely high speed connections (100Mbps synchronous) to certain buildings in the City and our building happened to be on the list (similar to CityLink back in Wellington). (I actually used Yelp to help me choose – services like Yelp that back in NZ don’t have the critical mass are absolutely essential when you’re in the US).
WebPass is $45 a month with no contract (or $400 for a year) – it’s cheaper than power!
I was connected in minutes and then the first thing I asked the technician was about “data caps”. It wasn’t the New Zealand accent that threw him – it was the term. “No data cap – unlimited – have fun!” he said. The first thing you notice with very fast, unlimited Internet access is how much freedom you have. No worrying about a massive over-charging on my bill – I’ve paid for the year so I have no bills!
From a consumer perspective this opens up a wide range of options. Obviously online gaming has no limits – but it’s television where the most disruptive changes are. Back in NZ I was investing cable providers. But with unlimited, fast Internet I bought an HDTV from Amazon with built-in WiFi and preloaded with apps. Yes – a TV with apps such as Hulu, Netflix and MLB.TV (I’m a big New York Yankees baseball fan). These apps stream high definition television over WiFi. I haven’t even bothered with cable yet – I’ve got everything available right there!
Obviously it helps that the content is so readily available – but I think half the reason it’s available is because it’s accessible. Making it available in New Zealand right now would be irresponsible as the cost to consumers is so prohibitive.
Now I can’t just watch TV all day – I am supposed to be working. And working is where I’ve found the biggest benefit. At home and at work the Internet is fast. Very fast. So my productivity has immediately increased. Everything I do for Xero requires access to the Internet in some form and now it’s almost instant – in fact I would argue it is instant. The productivity gains as a technology worker are massive. Free WiFi is in abundance in the US – both in coffee shops and hotels. This is also fast and unmetered – remote working is a lifestyle choice here and a choice that’s readily available.
My wife has also noticed the difference – as Xero’s Community Manager she is online as close to 24/7 as she can get. All her devices are now connected and connected constantly. Her job is easier and she’s more productive because the infrastructure is built for her kind of job – online and real-time. And at home she’s even more ecstatic! When she wants to upload photos of our new home town to Flickr it’s an instant process – in NZ uploading 50 photos would have taken minutes – long enough for her to have to go away and do something else – now it takes seconds.
Unfortunately the Internet back home still gets in the way. As a remote worker I have a team back home that I am in constant contact with. I can make Skype calls to US phones and the clarity is perfect – Facetime is awesome. But calling back to New Zealand still lags. I know it’s not me!
I always saw the need for the Pacific Fibre project because I understood the impact of fast, ubiquitous and cheap Internet in New Zealand. But it’s so radically different in the US right now Pacific Fibre is an imperative just to compete on a level playing field. How can technology firms in New Zealand expect to compete on a global scale when there is such a massive bandwidth divide? Pacific Fibre is not a nice-to-have – it’s a mission critical requirement for all New Zealand businesses.