Pacific Fibre ceases operations

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#665648 1-Aug-2012 18:21

Lorenceo: I wonder which company it is causing that? ;)

Great question, given that both Telecom and TelstraClear have redundant fibre running the length of the country, and FX networks almost reach Auckland to Invercargill, bar a few sections.

DonGould

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#665695 1-Aug-2012 19:53

MattR: I've been told from a friend who's rather high up at one of the big4 in Australia that NZ ISPs pay the same price per megabit on SCCN as Australian ISPs, so that isn't a valid excuse for the lower quotas here.

What is the price of SCCN v's PPC1?

I agree with you that there are many factors. .au also have huge data centers with content which are peered on a number of networks.

.au also has many providers and carriers so peering plays a bigger part.

Telstra have two of their own cables heading north.

There is also a cable heading out of Perth as well as three (or is it five) providers running from east to west and I'm just not sure how many choices between the eastern states.

Further, population numbers are just much higher in the major cities.

They also have population in three time zones which means that capacity peeks can be spread.

There are just so many different factors that have to be considered, so to point out that SCCN is the same cost here as .au is just misleading. (and please don't be offended :) a number of people keep pushing this point and I picked you to quote because yours was the last quote.)

Focus On Australia

My very limited observation is that we should be focused on a .au <> .nz link. It would give us access to global capacity without touching SCCN which in turn introduces competition.

RIP PF.

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slartibartfast

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#665718 1-Aug-2012 20:57

My very limited observation is that we should be focused on a .au <> .nz link. It would give us access to global capacity without touching SCCN which in turn introduces competition.

This was my thought when I heard this news - would a second cable between Australia and New Zealand address the key issues of price and redundancy?

MattR

224 posts

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#665728 1-Aug-2012 21:08

Don, I agree with you - you'll notice I did say that scale was a huge factor :)

DonGould

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#665734 1-Aug-2012 21:25

MattR: Don, I agree with you - you'll notice I did say that scale was a huge factor :)

It's not just about scale though, it's also about choice.

SCCN is fast, but not every application needs fast, so traffic that doesn't need speed can be purchased from a longer route. In my mind, that's where PPC1 comes in. You get to Guam and then you can pick up all sorts of capacity.

Dean also made some really good comments on NZNog. We want to be a suburb of Syd, not LA.

Everyone agrees that video is going to be the big UFB/NBN driver/app.

Between us, .nz and .au have 4 time zones. As we're heading off to bed, people in Perth are just sitting down for dinner. So a CDN node in Auckland is useful from NZST5pm through to WAST11pm (that's 11 hours a day).

After that, those servers could be used in other time zones which is where being able to push it to Guam makes sense to me, but I'm not expert in this space, I'm just trying to think about it logically.

However we also have to remember that out of Australia's east coast you have PPC1, AJC, Endv as well as SCCN. So that means more potential customers to sell your server capacity to.

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raytaylor

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#665832 2-Aug-2012 02:30

I think Pac Fibre should have realigned and went in to business with Kordia and continued with the OptiKor? project

Pipe networks have built their recent cable with a junction box on the seabed which can be lifted up and a cable from NZ can be connected into it.

Kordia announced their plans to build this cable a couple of years ago, but a few weeks after, Pac Fibre announced and suddenly Kordia didnt have a business case, despite various announcements that it was still alive and well.

I bet someone at Kordia is going to be going into the office tomorrow morning with a large smile on their face.

http://www.kordia.co.nz/BlogRetrieve.aspx?PostID=136991&A=SearchResult&SearchID=5127695&ObjectID=136991&ObjectType=55

Ray Taylor

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gzt

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#666188 2-Aug-2012 13:44

I see a lot of comment in the media about risk being too high and comments about deficiencies in the Pacific Fibre business plan but no detail.

What did large potential investors like the super funds perceive these risks and business plan deficiencies to be?

[Edit: The discussion about .au links above and the Kordia plan may provide part of an answer to that, but I'm still curious about the whole thing]

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nate

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#666210 2-Aug-2012 13:55

Surely Tindall, Drury, Morgan et al have a good chunk of the cash to do this themselves, then stockmarket float the rest?

gzt

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#666214 2-Aug-2012 14:02

nate: Surely Tindall, Drury, Morgan et al have a good chunk of the cash to do this themselves, then stockmarket float the rest?

They have an entrepreneurial focus for most of their investments - very high risk with potential high return - and probably want to keep cash available for that.

They have sunk a significant amount of cash into this so far.

My guess is - they saw PF as highly desirable and necessary infrastructure to support other opportunities and other things they want to get off the ground in NZ - rather than a primary objective.

hellonearthisman

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#666455 2-Aug-2012 19:01

I was hoping they would just connect to OZ, stage one. Then look at the figures of the functioning cable and then look at a 2nd cable to the states.

Just another OZ connection would be great it would keep the industrial players real.

I wonder if Kordia can buy the bits of Pacific Fiber to complete that ozzy cable job.

DonGould

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#666480 2-Aug-2012 19:26

hellonearthisman: I was hoping they would just connect to OZ, stage one. Then look at the figures of the functioning cable and then look at a 2nd cable to the states.

Just another OZ connection would be great it would keep the industrial players real.

I wonder if Kordia can buy the bits of Pacific Fiber to complete that ozzy cable job.

Sam says there's no business case to build from Auckland to Sydney.

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Talkiet

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#666493 2-Aug-2012 19:47

DonGould:
hellonearthisman: I was hoping they would just connect to OZ, stage one. Then look at the figures of the functioning cable and then look at a 2nd cable to the states.

Just another OZ connection would be great it would keep the industrial players real.

I wonder if Kordia can buy the bits of Pacific Fiber to complete that ozzy cable job.

Sam says there's no business case to build from Auckland to Sydney.

[PureDevilsAdvocate]

He also was confident there was a business case for the Pacific Fibre cable...

[/PureDevilsAdvocate]

Cheers - N

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sbiddle

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#666506 2-Aug-2012 20:02

DonGould:
hellonearthisman: I was hoping they would just connect to OZ, stage one. Then look at the figures of the functioning cable and then look at a 2nd cable to the states.

Just another OZ connection would be great it would keep the industrial players real.

I wonder if Kordia can buy the bits of Pacific Fiber to complete that ozzy cable job.

Sam says there's no business case to build from Auckland to Sydney.

With no disrespect to Sam, IMHO a comment like a level of ignorance at a technical level.

We're always going to be closer to Sydney than the US West Coast - Sydney has major CDN's hosting a vast amount of content that can be delivered with a far lower latency from Australia than the US West Coast.

Whether there is a business case from a financial perspective is one thing, but clearly on a technical level the faster and better our connectivity can be with Australia, the better the internet experience for everybody in NZ.

gzt

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#666513 2-Aug-2012 20:20

I'm not so sure faster non-unique content delivery was the overall strategic objective behind PF. Consider business requirements with unique data. The US is a much bigger market than Australia if we are exporting live data and services.

DonGould

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#666514 2-Aug-2012 20:20

Talkiet:
[PureDevilsAdvocate]

He also was confident there was a business case for the Pacific Fibre cable...

[/PureDevilsAdvocate]

Cheers - N

[TinFoilHat]It was all just a beat up to give SCCN guys the ammo they needed to build a business case to do the last capacity upgrade and then deliver the new pricing structure that they're now delivering, and help the govt guys their ammo to invest in UFB knowing that there was only one data provider [/tinfoilhat]

As Steve says, 'no disrespect to Sam', because at this point the only thing I know for sure is that I have absolutely no idea at all what's really going on...

http://www.interest.co.nz/business/60485/kiwi-pacific-fibre-cable-project-sunk-us-fears-about-chinese-investment-espionage-it-

Conspiracy stories now coming out.... who have a clue what happened in the smoke filled darkened rooms of power?

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