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back to article Submarine cable plan sinks without trace

Pacific Fibre, a company formed to build a submarine cable linking the USA, New Zealand and Australia, has called it a day after failing to find the funds it needed to build the project. “We believed funding for these long term infrastructure investments would have been more readily available and were confident the business …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Someone has to pay for it and we are in a recession.

    Still I'm sure when the good times come back investment will be available.

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    1. james lewis
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      ...by which time the nations with better infrastructure will have extended their lead over New Zealand and left them behind!

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      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        They are probably confusing the population of Pitcairn with New Zealand.

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    2. AndrueC Silver badge
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      Joke

      > Still I'm sure when the good times come back investment will be available.

      Yup. We're bust at the moment but there will be a boom coming soon.

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    3. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Baa?

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    With most New Zealanders now residing in Manly, it hardly seems worth the trouble.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not surprised really especially in a recession - Sydney to LA is 6507.9 Nautical Miles - that's a hell of a lot of fibre cable. Australia to NZ would be 1154.6 Nautical Miles which is still a lot. In ATM OC48c Long Reach fibre, 9µm Single Mode the distance is 49.70 miles max. Without land mass in between (which engineers can get to easily) its always going to be expensive.

    Would be fun to do though and an interesting challenge

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    1. Chris_Maresca
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      Repeaters

      It's not really a technology challenge, they put repeaters in every 10 miles or so.

      http://www.mitsubishielectric.com/bu/communication/transmission/submarine/products/wetplant.html

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable#Optical_telephone_cables

      The big cost is actually the ships, which cost something like a $100k/day to lease...

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      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Thumb Up

        Re: Repeaters

        Thanks for those links. Fab. :-)

        I've only ever seen one cable laying ship in my time in port - very impressive boat - and huge too. I suppose you are not going to get many knots out of the ship in motion so at £100k/day lease - yeah it would be very expensive.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    geology and that

    Are these land masses drifting closer together? It's probably worth keeping all the staff on as it may become a bit more viable.

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  5. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
    Happy

    Americans and Australians are known to be noisy. Can't they just shout?

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  6. earl grey
    Mushroom

    Undersea cable plan deep-sixed

    It's already needed; never mind the world-wide "depression". That's already been seen to be the result of greedy wankers at the top who don't really invest in anything worthwhile.

    Just build it already.

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