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

The US$300 million Hawaiki Submarine Cable System will deliver 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 CEO Remi Galasso. “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.”

The project has attracted 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,” said Hawaiki Submarine Cable System. “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.

“REANNZ and Hawaiki share a goal of increasing access to research and educational opportunities – for them in the Pacific and for us connecting researchers, educators and innovators, nationally and globally,” said REANNZ CEO Nicole Fergusson, adding that this new high-speed, high-performance connectivity removes the ‘tyranny of distance’ allowing for the easy transfer of data-intensive research anywhere in the world.