The issues raised by the US and Australian authorities’ concerns with Chinese suppliers further validate our decision last year to appoint TE SubCom, a US company and industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, to build the subsea portion of the Pacific Fibre cable.

US Ambassador Bleich supports signing of Pacific Fibre vendor agreement with TE SubCom. From left to right: David Coughlan - SubCom CEO, Mark Rushworth - Pacific Fibre CEO, Jeff Bleich - US Ambassador to Australia.

Having a US vendor on board reduces the risk of Pacific Fibre facing the same concerns from regulatory authorities in relation to security breaches on our cable system.

Last month we announced the completion of our Californian and Australian landings desktop study and Californian permitting study in conjunction with TE SubCom. With initial approvals obtained from Californian permitting authorities, the project is now set to move forward with the marine route study.

We are confident that we will secure all permits and licences required to land the Pacific Fibre cable in the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

Where this leaves the proposed Huawei Marine built trans-Tasman cable, is another question.

Mark Rushworth – CEO Pacific Fibre

Friday, 2 March 2012, 12:56 pm
Press Release: Pacific Fibre

Pacific Fibre And TE SubCom Complete Permitting Study For Trans-Pacific Subsea Cable System

Marine Route Survey Begins for Record-Breaking 12,950km System

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND and MORRISTOWN, NJ, USA – February 29, 2012 – Pacific Fibre and TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, today announced the completion of their Californian and Australian landings Desk Top Study (DTS) and Californian permitting study for the 12,950km two-cable Pacific Fibre undersea cable system that will link Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

The permitting study, conducted by TE SubCom, identified all necessary permits needed along the route for the Californian landing as well as appropriate agencies, timetables and dependencies required for approvals. During the study, TE SubCom’s permitting experts met with permitting authorities and affected fisheries to introduce the project, gain preliminary approvals and obtain input on the route. With initial approvals attained, the project is now set to move forward with the marine route study.

“Conducting this DTS and the Californian permitting study process signifies forward growth for us, and we’re excited to have reached their conclusion,” said Mark Rushworth, CEO, Pacific Fibre. “With all systems go, we’re ready to begin the next phase of the project and move one step closer to its completion.”

“In our experience, early review and support from Californian fisheries is vital to a successful project implementation,” said David Coughlan, CEO, TE SubCom. “The completion of these studies helps to mitigate permitting risks while allowing the project to stay on course for a timely installation.”

Scheduled to be finalised in 2014, the Pacific Fibre system will meet the increasing demand for international bandwidth in Australia and New Zealand. Upon the project’s completion, the system will be the highest-capacity-per-fiber-pair system longer than 10,000km, boasting a significantly higher cross sectional capacity than any other trans-Pacific cable.

# # # #

About Pacific Fibre
Pacific Fibre was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand. The Pacific Fibre shareholders include a number of successful entrepreneurs with proven track records, including Sam Morgan, Rod Drury, Sir Stephen Tindall, David Kirk MBE, and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel.

The Pacific Fibre cable will be one of the longest and most technically advanced cable systems when it goes live in 2014. It will link Los Angeles directly to Auckland, New Zealand and then continue to Sydney, Australia via a trans-Tasman link and will offer the fastest route from Australia and New Zealand to the United States. With an initial design speed of 10.2Tbps using 40Gbps technology, it will have the largest forecast capacity of any cable in the region. The design also supports upgradeability to 100Gbps technology, and there is potential to upgrade beyond this in the future as technology develops. Pacific Fibre will operate a POP to POP policy allowing customers to connect at conventional peering points, with customer friendly interfaces.
For more information visit www.pacificfibre.net.

About TE SubCom
TE SubCom (SubCom), a TE Connectivity Ltd. company, is an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology and marine services and a leading global supplier for today’s undersea communications requirements. Drawing on its heritage of technical innovation and industry recognized performance, SubCom delivers the most reliable, high quality solutions to organizations with undersea communications needs vital to their core mission. The company designs, manufactures and installs systems around the world, and has deployed more than 490,000km of subsea communication cable—or enough to circle the earth more than 12 times at the equator SubCom’s global presence, backed by industry leading research and development laboratories, manufacturing facilities, installation and maintenance ships, depots, and management team work together to implement integrated solutions and network upgrades, with unsurpassed reliability, that support the needs of telecommunications, internet providers, offshore and science customers worldwide.

For more information visit www.SubCom.com.

About TE Connectivity
TE Connectivity is a global, $14 billion company that designs and manufactures approximately 500,000 products that connect and protect the flow of power and data inside the products that touch every aspect of our lives. Our nearly 100,000 employees partner with customers in virtually every industry—from consumer electronics, energy and healthcare, to automotive, aerospace and communication networks—enabling smarter, faster, better technologies to connect products to possibilities. More information on TE Connectivity can be found at http://www.te.com.

***********

See Full Article Here
Scripps researchers, NOAA and TE SubCom agree to pursue science ports on transcontinental fiber optic cable lines to help monitor earthquakes, tsunamis and other forces

Scripps Institution of Oceanography / University of California, San Diego

Marine scientists and a commercial telecommunications company are exploring partnerships that could dramatically advance scientists’ ability to observe and study ocean processes, provide early alerts for potential disasters and study deep Earth geodynamics.

Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and engineers at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) are in the initial discussion stages with Morristown, N.J.-based TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, to integrate scientific instruments onto thousands of miles of seafloor communication cables across the Pacific Ocean. The data collected will be open and available to the global scientific community.

“This is the first time a commercial telecommunications company’s cable installations will be deployed with embedded science sensors,” said John Orcutt, a distinguished professor of geophysics at Scripps and one of the leaders of the project. “It provides us with a whole new world of capability.”

The exploratory partnership between Scripps researchers, NOAA and TE SubCom is in the formative stages seeking funding for engineering and operations and looking at new approaches to collect high-bandwidth ocean data from the seafloor.

“This is an exciting opportunity to launch a new direction in subsea telecommunications, as there is significant potential in opening up data and power connectivity along undersea cables,” said Mark Englund, managing director, TE SubCom. “TE SubCom has a solution for ocean connectivity with unprecedented performance-to-cost ratios, and together with Scripps and PMEL, we have the right ingredients to make cable-based ocean connectivity a reality in every major ocean.”

An illustrative depiction of a transcontinental fiber optic cable line with scientific instrument ports.

The initial project is envisioned to focus along a cable route spanning 12,950 kilometers (8,105 miles) from Sydney to Auckland and across the Pacific Ocean to Los Angeles. Initial efforts are exploring the use of seismometers, pressure gauges and temperature sensors for hazard warning and mitigation. As funding develops, sensors could be deployed on future cables for the first time at 75 kilometers (47 miles) spacing. The sensors could allow NOAA scientists to measure the size and direction of tsunamis propagating across the ocean more precisely and to alert disaster management officials and first responders more quickly. The installation on the seafloor cable has the potential to greatly reduce long-term costs for tsunami monitoring, while at the same time dramatically increasing sensor density, accuracy and reliability.

“We’ve seen an unprecedented number of large and devastating tsunamis over the last several years,” said Christopher Sabine, Director of NOAA-PMEL. “We must explore new approaches for improving tsunami detection at lower costs while maintaining our existing capabilities.”

The fiber optic cable is capable of transmitting data at a maximum of 40 gigabits per second from deep-sea locations where gaps of instrument coverage currently exist. For comparison, the entire print collection of the Library of Congress could be transmitted over the link in just more than 30 minutes.

“More than 70 percent of the world is water and we need to understand much more of it,” said Orcutt, a scientist at the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at Scripps. “If this project expands to other oceans it could change the face of oceanography.”

The collaborators hope the academic-government-industry project will create a handful of new jobs, primarily in data management and near-real-time analysis, while providing the scientific community with an invaluable stream of data.

In addition to seismometers and pressure gauges, the scientific ports along the cable line could eventually include a comprehensive suite of sensors such as climate instruments (acoustic tomography and water column temperature and conductivity, for example) to measure ocean warming.

“We strive to explore new ways of observing the ocean that are innovative as well as cost-effective. This three-way collaboration between academia, government and industry could change the way we work,” said Sabine.

Scripps research geophysicist Frank Vernon, deputy director of the NSF Ocean Observatories Initiative Cyberinfrastructure program, is expected to use seismological data from the project to supplement details of Pacific Ocean earthquakes and develop deep images across the Pacific that presently are not possible.

“Currently we don’t have enough seismometers out there, so this effort will help us better understand the world beneath us,” said Vernon. “This includes our understanding of the plates, the interfaces inside the Earth and structural components from the crust down to the core.”

About TE SubCom
TE SubCom (SubCom), a TE Connectivity Ltd. company, is an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology and marine services and a leading global supplier for today’s undersea communications requirements. Drawing on its heritage of technical innovation and industry recognized performance, SubCom delivers the most reliable, high quality solutions to organizations with undersea communications needs vital to their core mission. The company designs, manufactures and installs systems around the world, and has deployed more than 490,000km of subsea communication cable-or enough to circle the earth more than 12 times at the equator. SubCom’s global presence, backed by industry leading research and development laboratories, manufacturing facilities, installation and maintenance ships, depots, and management team work together to implement integrated solutions and network upgrades, with unsurpassed reliability, that support the needs of telecommunications, internet providers, offshore and science customers worldwide.
For more information visit www.SubCom.com.

About TE Connectivity
TE Connectivity is a global, $14 billion company that designs and manufactures approximately 500,000 products that connect and protect the flow of power and data inside the products that touch every aspect of our lives. Our nearly 100,000 employees partner with customers in virtually every industry-from consumer electronics, energy and healthcare, to automotive, aerospace and communication networks-enabling smarter, faster, better technologies to connect products to possibilities. More information on TE Connectivity can be found at http://www.te.com.

About NOAA-PMEL
NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) conducts interdisciplinary scientific investigations in oceanography and atmospheric science. PMEL programs focus on open ocean observations in support of long-term monitoring and prediction of the ocean environment on time scales from hours to decades. Studies are conducted to improve our understanding of the complex physical and geochemical processes operating in the world oceans, to define the forcing functions and processes driving ocean circulation and the global climate system, and to improve environmental forecasting capabilities and other supporting services for marine commerce and fisheries. More at www.pmel.noaa.gov

# # #

From NBR – Chris Keall | Monday February 20, 2012 | 44 comments

Sorry Stephen, it’s just how we do things in this part of the world

UPDATE: 3.30pm: New Zealand broadband might not be up to snuff, but we have the best spin doctors.

“Essentially the situation with Mr Fry this morning was a misunderstanding,” a Telecom spokeswoman told NBR this afternoon.

“He was downloading and uploading large video files on a residential data plan that was unsuitable for his requirements. It had been set up by the existing occupants of the house and only had an average data limit,” she said.

“As a result, Mr Fry had exceeded the data allowance, and so his speed was throttled. So his comments were in reference to throttled speed, rather than actual broadband speed.

“This morning, we spoke to the account holder and got the house on a plan much more suited to his needs, and I understand everyone is happy with the new situation.”

However his subsequent tweets indicated Mr Fry – who arrived in Wellington this week for a role in Sir Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit – was not 110% happy with the way things are done in Godzone.

“Well, seem to have stirred up a hornet’s nest. It seems I exceeded a d’load limit and had my BB throttled to a crawl: @TelecomNZ have put this right this right. Very quick and polite. But I wonder if everyone who complains gets this attention? I think Comcast style throttliI think Comcast style throttling is a for the economy it’s disastrous, for visitors for everyone,” the actor tweeted.

Adding, “Yes, kiwi land is remote, but if Avatar can be made here and NZ wants to keep its rep for being the loveable, easy-going, outdoorsy yet tech savvy place it is, then pressure @telecomnz into offering better packages.”

The data caps that accompany New Zealand landline broadband plans are unusual in the developed world. In most countries, all-you-can-eat data is the norm.

Mr Fry also seemed to be caught on the hop by capped upload speed. The actor seems more acclimatised to faster DSL connections, or fibre that allows top-speed in both directions.

Follow Stephen Fry on Twitter.

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New Zealand broadband bagged by Hobbit star

8.30am: On the eve of the Commerce Commission’s Future Broadbandconference in Auckland, UK actor Stephen Fry has let loose on Twitter about the state of New Zealand’s broadband.

Mr Fry, who is in Wellington to play a role in Sir Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, said on the social network this morning, “New Zealand so fine. It they have probably the worst. Broadband I’ve ever encountered. Turns itself off slows to a crawl. Pathetic.”

He added, “Rise up, Kiwis and demand better? You wouldn’t allow crap roads with pot holes and single file.”

The actor – who has close to 4 million followers on Twitter, complained about the “complacent Telecomm [sic] and their contemptuous attitude to customers.”

Telecommunications Users Association boss Paul Brislen had sympathy for the visiting star.

“New Zealand needs to do more to avoid being left behind by the rest of the world – rural New Zealand doubly so - 5Mbit/s is too slow. We need to do better.”

Embarrassing
Pacific Fibre CEO Mark Rushworth weighed in with the harsher “It’s always embarrassing when international guests stay in our hotels and experience a painfully slow 100MB data cap for $30.”

Mr Rushworth’s company, backed by Rich Listers Rod Drury, Sir Stephen Tindalland Sam Morgan, is aiming to break the 50% Telecom-owned Southern Cross Cable’s monopoly on New Zealand’s interent connection to the outside world.

Pacific Fibre sees its cable as complementing the main domestic broadbandintiative - the $1.35 billion Ultrafast Broadband (UFB) intiative - which will seefibre connections to many homes, schools and businesses over the next 10 years. The domestic fibre will stoke user demand for video and other broadwidth-intensive content, much of which is hosted offshore.

“The government building five-lane super fibre highway, but it’s pointless when New Zealand has single dirt road for international connection,” Mr Rushworth toldNBR.

“That’s a big problem when 85% of our content comes from the US.”

 

See the full article here

 

Has Pacific Fibre stumbled across the modern-day equivalent of sunken treasure in its ongoing quest to lay cables between Australia, New Zealand and the US?

As part of its coverage of the Pacific Telecommunications Council’s annual conference last month, Communications Day [PDF, 480KB] reported on discussions amongst delegates about an emerging technology: sensors on cables.

The concept is being promoted byTE SubCom, a subsidiary of TE Connectivity which Pacific Fibre last year signed up to build its cable.

According to the CommsDay report, TE SubCom’s Ekaterina Golovchenko told the PTC’12 conference her company was talking to Pacific Fibre about the possibility of adding sensors to its planned 12,750km cable.

This was later confirmed by Pacific Fibre director Mike Constable who said the company was investigating the ‘’value add of sensor monitoring for climate monitoring and disaster mitigation’.

Read More..

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

matthew.east@vodafone.com

+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. 

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.

Pacific Fibre has signed a definitive agreement with iiNet for the

supply of international capacity on the Pacific Fibre cable system.

Pacific Fibre’s CEO, Mark Rushworth said he was very pleased to

have Australia’s second largest DSL broadband provider on board

as a foundation customer.

“We look forward to supporting iiNet’s ongoing success by

ensuring that they can deliver a faster service and more cost

effective solutions to their customers,”  Mr Rushworth said.

iiNet’s CEO, Michael Malone said this would benefit

customers by providing greater capacity on some of the busiest

international routes for Internet traffic.

“As a foundation customer with Pacific Fibre, our customers

will enjoy some of the fastest paths when accessing international

content both now and well into the future” Mr Malone said.

“We have always supported competition in the International cable

space, and the additional capacity and choice Pacific Fibre is

delivering can only be good for both our business and the

industry in general.”

Pacific Fibre’s undersea cable system will connect Australia

to New Zealand, then on to the USA. It is scheduled to be in

commercial service by early 2014.

ENDS

For more information please contact:

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 be the longest, and most

technically advanced trans-°©‐oceanic cable in the world.

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 10.2 Tb/s of design capacity with

100G upgradability to 12.8Tb/s.

About iiNet:

iiNet is Australia’s second largest DSL Internet Service

Provider (ISP) and the leading challenger in the

telecommunications market. iiNet employs approximately

2000 inquisitive staff across four countries and support over

1.3 million broadband, telephone and Internet

Protocol TV (IPTV) services nationwide.

12,750km System Will Set Record for Cross Sectional Capacity, Support Increasing Capacity Demands in Australia and New Zealand

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND and MORRISTOWN, NJ, USA – July 18, 2011 – Pacific Fibre and TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company (NYSE: TEL) and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, today announced the signing of a supply contract for the Pacific Fibre undersea cable system. The exceptionally long system will stretch 12,750km and boast a significantly higher cross sectional capacity than any other trans-Pacific cable.

Intended to meet the increasing demand for international bandwidth in Australia and New Zealand, which has been growing at a rate of 55 percent per year, the Pacific Fibre system is planned for completion in 2014. The two-cable system will link Australia and New Zealand via a trans-Tasman cable, while connecting New Zealand to the United States via a trans-Pacific cable. The cable landing points will be in Sydney, Australia; Auckland, New Zealand; and Los Angeles, California in the United States.

“Demand for international capacity in Australia and New Zealand is sharply increasing and is on track to continue growing for years to come,” said Mark Rushworth, CEO, Pacific Fibre. Mr. Rushworth continued, “The Pacific Fibre cable will not only provide unsurpassed high speed international connectivity to satisfy the growth in broadband demand, but it will also help Australia and New Zealand realize the potential of both countries’ multi-billion dollar broadband initiatives.”

Mike Constable, Director of Business Development, who led the vendor selection and negotiations added, “We look forward to working with TE SubCom, and are confident that the company’s leading 40G and 100G technology, coupled with itsextensive experience and marine capabilities will enable us to successfully implement and deliver this landmark project by the scheduled launch in the first quarter of 2014.”

Upon completion, the Pacific Fibre system will be the highest-capacity-per-fiber- pair system ever built. The cables will each have two fiber pairs, with an ultimate cable design capacity of 12.8 Tbps.

“We are pleased to join forces with Pacific Fibre to construct the longest trans- Pacific system and look forward to seeing the significant benefits that Pacific Fibre’s cable will bring to the region,” said David Coughlan, President of TE SubCom. “The system will be built with our advanced technology and will enable Pacific Fibre to deliver much-needed international connectivity between Australia, New Zealand and the United States in the immediate future and to continually support the region’s ever-growing international demand.”

About Pacific Fibre

Pacific Fibre was founded in 2010 and will deliver the longest and most technically advanced undersea cable systems linking Australia, New Zealand and USA. Pacific Fibre is headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand. The Pacific Fibre shareholders include a number of successful entrepreneurs with proven track records, including Sam Morgan, Rod Drury, Sir Stephen Tindall, David Kirk MBE, and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel.

For more information visit www.pacificfibre.net.

About TE SubCom

TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company, is an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology and marine services and a leading global supplier for today’s undersea communications requirements. Drawing on its heritage of technical innovation and industry recognized performance, TE SubCom delivers the most reliable, high quality solutions to organizations with undersea communications needs vital to their core mission. The company designs, manufactures and installs systems around the world, and has deployed more than 490,000km of subsea communication cable—or enough to circle the earth more than 12 times at the equator. TE SubCom’s global presence, backed by industry leading research and development laboratories, manufacturing facilities, installation and maintenance ships, depots, and management team work together to implement integrated solutions and network upgrades, with unsurpassed reliability, that support the needs of telecommunications, internet providers, offshore and science customers worldwide.

For more information visit www.SubCom.com.

About TE Connectivity

TE Connectivity is a global, $12.1 billion company that designs and manufactures over 500,000 products that connect and protect the flow of power and data inside the products that touch every aspect of our lives. Our nearly 100,000 employees partner with customers in virtually every industry — from consumer electronics, energy and healthcare, to automotive, aerospace and communication networks — enabling smarter, faster, better technologies to connect products to possibilities. More information on TE Connectivity can be found at http://www.te.com/.

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