Businessmen Sir Eion Edgar and Remi Galasso have announced a long-term partnership with entrepreneur Malcolm Dick to fund and operate the multimillion-dollar Hawaiki Cable system.
The submarine cable company announced its intention to connect New Zealand and Australia to the mainland United States through Hawaii in 2012.
The cable is believed to cost between $400 million and $500 million and is expected to mean faster and cheaper access to the internet.
Hawaiki Submarine Cable and TE SubCom said in a statement the cable would link Australia and New Zealand to mainland US with options to expand to several South Pacific islands.
Permitting and initial route planning began in June last year and the system would be completed by mid-2018.
The 14,000km cable would have the capacity to deliver more than 30 terabytes per second (Tbps).
Sir Eion said the cable was the start of a new era for New Zealand and the Pacific islands.
"We are excited to be at the forefront of this very significant infrastructure investment.''
Mr Dick, who co-founded telecommunications company CallPlus, said the cable could make data caps on broadband contracts a thing of the past.
"A lack of an alternative cable system connecting Australia, New Zealand and the US has long been a concern of mine so I am delighted to be part of the project.''
Having built businesses in both Australia and New Zealand in the past, Mr Dick said he was aware of the need to provide competition by being independent of the incumbent operators.
The increased level of competition and capacity should make data caps a thing of the past, he said.
At a glance
• TERABYTES PER SECOND (TBps)
Terabytes per second refers to a data transmission rate equivalent to 1000 gigabytes, or 1,000,000,000,000 bytes per second. This extremely fast data transfer rate is used to quantify various kinds of data transmission between pieces of equipment or software environments, or other kinds of data-handling. Terabytes per second may go by the acronym TB/s.
• HAWAIKI SUBMARINE
Hawaiki Submarine Cable LP has its headquarters in Auckland and is the owner and developer of the submarine cable Hawaiki. Hawaiki is a carrier-neutral submarine cable that will link Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Oregon, on the west coast of the US.
• TE SUBCOM
TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd company, is a pioneer in undersea communications and marine services and a leading global supplier for undersea communications requirements.
