The country's internet connectivity with Australia and the United States has effectively doubled in capacity with a new undersea cable coming into operation.
The 15,840 kilometre Southern Cross NEXT fibre cable being laid. Photo: Southern Cross Cable Ltd
The Southern Cross NEXT fibre cable has been installed to meet rising demand for fast bandwidth, which is being driven by cloud adoption and digitisation. The new cable will allow for the streaming of more than 4.5 million Ultra HD 4k videos simultaneously.
New Zealand telco Spark is a partner in Southern Cross and its chief executive, Jolie Hodson, said the new cable brought diversity and resilience to the country's international connections, and the expansion of bandwidth would take the country into the future.
"The SX NEXT will improve resilience and boost international connectivity between on and offshore data centres, delivering the high-capacity and low-latency services so many customers need to power their businesses and operations."
She said it would also support the development of emerging technologies such as 5G mobile and Internet of Things services.
The 15,840 kilometre cable runs from Sydney to Los Angeles with links to Auckland, Fiji, Tokelau, and Kiribati, and took about two years to lay and install.
It is the third link in the Southern Cross network between Australasia and the USA, and will be a replacement when existing systems start to be retired from 2030.
Singapore-owned company Hawaiki also owns a competing trans-Pacific cable, and Spark is involved, in partnership with Vodafone, in another cable connection to Australia.