Pacfic Fibre, any more info on it.

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Pacfic Fibre, any more info on it.

PaulZA

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#97832 21-Feb-2012 09:52

Just read the website, about damn time a new cable was built. How the heck can you provide modern day adsl on a cable built in 1998. When most users were on dial up, and the sx cable was fine then. but the situation has changed People stream stuff etc and I think it is about time that we have a new fibre cable built that will cope with the demand better.

My question is, does anybody have any info on it and when will are they starting to lay the fibre under the ocean, and what date is all estimated to be completed?

Thanks

freitasm

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#584358 21-Feb-2012 09:55

I suggest you enter PacificFibre in our search page to find previous news articles and discussions on this company.

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garvani

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#584359 21-Feb-2012 09:57

Ermm the southern cross cable is constantly being upgraded, its not the same cable it was in 1998! Its at 10Gbps at the moment, but later this year goes to 40Gbps and further down the track is being upgraded to 100Gbps!

Im all for competition however, and i believe the Pacific fibre cable will bring better prices to NZ. They are still trying to fund the cable afaik, so its still a while off yet!

Kraven

728 posts

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#584367 21-Feb-2012 10:08

garvani: Ermm the southern cross cable is constantly being upgraded, its not the same cable it was in 1998! Its at 10Gbps at the moment, but later this year goes to 40Gbps and further down the track is being upgraded to 100Gbps!

Im all for competition however, and i believe the Pacific fibre cable will bring better prices to NZ. They are still trying to fund the cable afaik, so its still a while off yet!

The capacity is far greater than that!

Our network's total lit capacity is now 1.4 Terabits per second. By March it will increase to 1.6 Terabits and by December to 2.0 Terabits. We have the potential to go to at least 6 Terabits per second by December next year, about 25 times higher than the original design capability in 2000, and our potential is expected to increase dramatically over the next few years.

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Zeon

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#584368 21-Feb-2012 10:11

PaulZA: Just read the website, about damn time a new cable was built. How the heck can you provide modern day adsl on a cable built in 1998. When most users were on dial up, and the sx cable was fine then. but the situation has changed People stream stuff etc and I think it is about time that we have a new fibre cable built that will cope with the demand better.

My question is, does anybody have any info on it and when will are they starting to lay the fibre under the ocean, and what date is all estimated to be completed?

Thanks

The Southern Cross Cable is being constantly upgraded and even feeding basically all NZ and most of Aus traffic is only at 33% capacity. In terms of bandwidth available the new cable isn't going to help too much. The big benefit we want to see is greater competition driving down prices.

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garvani

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#584370 21-Feb-2012 10:14

Right you are! However I wasn't referring to capacity i was talking about transmission equipment.

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stevenz

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#584402 21-Feb-2012 11:02

And I seem to recall that they significantly dropped the wholesale price of their supply a couple of weeks ago as well.

I still reckon that my existing internet is just fine, possibly a tad on the expensive side, but 60GB/month at a download speed of 1.5MB/sec is fine for me. If I ever find a need to upload any significant data, I may have to look at VDSL.

Given that there's usually bottlenecks further afield, they can ramp up the international link as much as they want, it won't help if the site overseas is on a narrow pipe.

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Publius

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#584660 21-Feb-2012 16:18

The "Problem" with the Southern Cross Cable is not that it is old or slow. It is a very good cable and capable of far more data now and though transmission upgrades in the future.

The "Problem" is that it does not have any competition and so being a monopoly (single supplier) it charges as much as it can get away with. This will never change unless it is regulated by the Government or another cable is built by a different company. (IE, if Southern Cross Cables built another cable (which isn't needed) then prices wouldn't change -- Still a monopoly)

The hard problem for people like Pacific Fibre is that they can't build a cable without getting long-term customers to sign a purchase agreement which they use to show to people with money to get a loan to build the cable.

freitasm

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#584662 21-Feb-2012 16:19

They already have signed with Vodafone and others...

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SteveON

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#584676 21-Feb-2012 16:48

Don't forget China! http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/5658341/Chinese-cable-could-threaten-Pacifics-plans

crackrdbycracku

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#584702 21-Feb-2012 17:52

A little off top but is someone able to explain, in simple terms for simple me, how the cable is able to carry more and more data while still being the same physical cable?

I don't doubt it, I'm just curious.

I know the 'pipe (cable) + water (data)' analogy is crude but it is the best one I have.

Thanks.

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Beccara

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#584712 21-Feb-2012 18:07

Basiclly shove more data down the pipe on one wavelength, They upgrade the landing station gear - All thats undersea is big AMP's for light

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crackrdbycracku

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#584714 21-Feb-2012 18:10

Beccara: Basiclly shove more data down the pipe on one wavelength, They upgrade the landing station gear - All thats undersea is big AMP's for light

Cool, thanks

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DonGould

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#584717 21-Feb-2012 18:20

Old cables used to have digital amps on them. So, to do an upgrade you have to change out the amps.

Newer cables like SCX and PPC1 have optical amps on them. This means the amp doesn't do a media translation, it just boosts the optical signal on the fibre itself.

So... to upgrade, all they have to do is change the head ends on the cable, not all the amps along the cable.

So, they have two choices for upgrades... add a new head end that will let them put another wave length on the cable or change a head end that will let them put faster data.

When SCX was originally delivered the cable was 240Gbit iirc, and using 10Gb waves.

However today cables are routinely run at 40Gb AIUI. There is also work on 100Gb as well.

So, one wave can carry 40Gb.

PPC1 was designed originally to carry 96 * 10Gb waves, iirc. However cables are now being designed to carry 128 waves iirc.

So, if you change out the head ends to go from 96 waves to 128 you can see just how much growth that gives you. If you go from 10 to 40 to 100 gb waves... you get the idea.

Talking of PF and the Chinese cable plans... each of those means deploying a whole new cable, where as all SCX has to do is change out head ends on their existing cable. You can see the business risk.

Bevan Slattery, the guy who master minded the PPC1 cable make comment at the time about where traffic will head over the next two decades.

Personally I'd invest in a .au/.nz cable.

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