Hawaii Trans-pacific Cable adds 43 TB capacity

Hawaiki Submarine Cable has commenced commercial operations for its 15,000 km fibre optic deep-sea cable linking Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific and United States.

The $300 million Hawaiki Submarine Cable System represents a new dawn for digital communications in the region, delivering 43 terabits of additional capacity – several times the current levels of Australia and New Zealand combined – on a fully diverse subsea route.

“This 25-year transoceanic infrastructure opens the door for unprecedented levels of economic, social and research collaboration right across the Pacific,” said Hawaiki Chief Executive Officer, Remi Galas.

“Hawaiki is the fastest and largest cross-sectional capacity link between the U.S. and Australia and New Zealand. It will significantly enhance our connectivity to the rest of the world and, ultimately, improve the everyday life of our communities,” commented Galas.

Since its inception, the project has attracted strong support from government and industry with anchor customers including Amazon Web Services, Vodafone, American Samoa Telecommunications Authority (ASTCA) and Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand (REANNZ).

Completion of the project is especially timely for South Pacific nations, which are seeing demand for capacity growing by 45% year-on-year. Hawaiki has been specifically-designed to meet these expanding requirements, providing infrastructure to support critical applications such as business-grade cloud services, real-time content delivery and ultra-low latency networks.

New Zealand’s leading university and research collaboration body, REANNZ has secured a 25-year anchor tenancy on behalf of the NZ Government, providing a major boon for the organisation as it seeks greater collaboration in solving some of the world’s biggest challenges.

Hawaiki also provides more security to the market through new and diverse paths on both trans-Tasman and trans-Pacific links. This enables its customers to build fully-redundant networks, including multiple routes, as well as an array of always-on services.

Hawaiki has included several stubbed branching units to enable the future connection of New Caledonia, Fiji and Tonga. American Samoa will be connected from day one, after celebrating the cable’s final landing in April this year.

The construction of Hawaiki cable system, including the marine survey, design, manufacturing and cable laying, took 27 months and was undertaken by world leading supplier TE SubCom.

Sanjay Chowbey, President, TE SubCom said, “The Hawaiki Cable System is a great endeavor, achieved by a culmination of extraordinary effort and strong relationships. TE SubCom is pleased to play an important role in the success of this system which will add value to local economies and communities.”