Hawaiki goes the extra 4000 km

Hawaiki Cable Limited says it now plans to land its 14,000 km trans-Pacific submarine cable in Oregon, USA.

Previously the company talked about connecting Australia, New Zealand and possibly a number of Pacific island nations to Hawaii where it would pick up connections to the US mainland.

The company has signed with US providers to build a cable landing station, infrastructure and a fibre backhaul network.

Hawaiki CEO Rémi Galasso says Oregon is the best state on the US West Coast to land a submarine fibre optic cable. He says: “The coast is relatively safe and the state permitting process is shorter. Our customers tell us that they like Oregon’s diversity and easy access to US networks and data centres”.

The new submarine cable is scheduled for completion in late 2015.

Earlier submarine cable projects, including Pacific Fibre, ran into problems partly because of US concerns of Chinese involvement. To date, Hawaiki appears to have avoided such political controversy.