An internet cable is now in use that roughly doubles New Zealand’s internet connection to the rest of the world.
The $350 million ($570 million) SX Next cable will run between Auckland, Sydney and Los Angeles and will also provide the first fiber broadband connections to Tokelau and Kiribati.
Spark spokesman Sam Smith said the new cable, which it partly owns through the Southern Cross Cable joint venture, would reduce internet traffic delays between Auckland and Los Angeles by about 5% thanks to the more direct route.
“While it may not seem like much, it is usually very important for users with time-sensitive requirements, such as financial traders and gamers,” she said.
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SX Next would also enable Internet service providers to provide greater resilience and diversity on international connections to customers for whom “uptime” was paramount, such as banks, she said.
Southern Cross Cable’s director of marketing, Craige Sloots, said the cable’s main interest to consumers was that it dramatically increased the amount of data it could transfer to and from New Zealand.
Chris McKeen / Stuff
The Covid pandemic was an added complication to SX Next’s commissioning, but owner Southern Cross Cable says the job is now done.
That was important as demand for internet streaming services and 5G data connections grew, he said.
Smith said SX Next would ensure the country’s data needs were met for the next 20 years.
Southern Cross has two other fiber optic cables, configured in a ‘figure of 8’ in the middle of Hawaii, also connecting New Zealand, Australia and the US, but these are expected to be out of service sometime by 2030.
Singaporean company Hawaiki also owns a competing trans-Pacific cable, with more connections planned, and Spark, along with Vodafone, has a separate stake in another fiber link across the Tasman.
Southern Cross said the 15,480 kilometer SX Next cable had the capacity to carry 72 terabits of data per second, which would be enough to simultaneously stream more than 4.5 million videos in 4K resolution.
The commissioning of the cable took two years due to complications from the Covid pandemic.