KEY POINTS:
Yet more plans to connect Australia to the world via new undersea cable links have emerged. This time it is Western Australia that's set to get better international connectivity, with a new A$150 million fibre cable planned to link Perth with Jakarta and Singapore.
As Australian telecoms trade magazine
CommsDay reported today: "While only 10 per cent of Australia's international traffic runs from the west coast, service providers are concerned about the lack of diversity and the high prices available on the current SeaMeWe3 link. The Western Australian government has identified a need for new connections to Asia and Europe reducing latency and providing route diversity."
The Western Australian and Indonesian governments are both involved, though not financially, in the plan for a multi-terrbit capacity pipe that will also link up oil and gas facilities which is being led by Ochre Services. That's an important development as oil and gas exploration becomes more reliant on computers and data analysis. The exploration firms need to be able to shift spatial data back to head office in real time for analysis and for that they need broadband - a good, practical application of the technology.
The plan which CommsDay suggests the plan will progress next year, comes to light as Asia Netcomm considers building a cable to Australia's west coast - the carrier has been courting the likes of Google and Asian telcos as partners. Pipe Networks is also considering a New Zealand link as part of its Guam-Sydney cable.
There's a couple of interesting things about the Australian cable plans, from our perspective on the other side of the ditch. The cost being discussed, around the A$150 million mark, gives credence to claims from various parties that a new New Zealand-Australia undersea cable could cost as little as $100 million to complete. That's not an earth-shattering figure, I'm sure a solid, long-term investment case for that could be made, keeping things completely locally-owned.
It also shows Australia's interest in improving fibre connectivity to Asia, which is where Australians will increasingly be doing business. This is a priority for us as well, though any new cable here will look to get traffic to Australia, which is our stepping stone to the major data highways to the US and Asia.
As I reported last week, communications minister David Cunliffe suggested at the Digital Summit in Auckland that the Government is considering contributing to a contestable fund to help finance a new undersea cable. He said the cost of international connectivity is too high because there's only one dominant player currently providing a trans=Tasman link - the Southern Cross Cable Network. Cunliffe claims broadband users are paying $9 of the $30 - $50 cost of a high-speed internet connection for international capacity - too large a proportion in the eyes of the Government.
