Hawaiki Submarine Cable LP, the New Zealand owner and developer of the Hawaiki submarine cable system, has signed a a Landing Party Agreement with Alaska Communications (NASDAQ: ALSK) to be the submarine network's landing and operating partner in Oregon. Hawaiki will land its proposed 14,000 km trans-Pacific undersea cable, which will connect Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and the U.S. West Coast, in Pacific City, OR.
"Oregon is probably the best state on the U.S. West Coast to land a submarine cable. The coast is relatively safe, the state permitting process is efficient, and most importantly, our customers like Oregon's diversity and easy access to U.S. networks and data centers," said Gina Bohreer, senior vice president North America of Hawaiki. "We are pleased to have a long-term partnership with Alaska Communications, who understands our customers' requirements in terms of system performance and quality of service."
Alaska Communications already manages a pair of geographically diverse submarine cable networks between Alaska and the Pacific Northwest and has provided landing station and network management services to other trans-Pacific undersea cable networks, points out Bill Bishop, senior vice president, business markets at Alaska Communications.
TE Subcom recently completed the marine survey of the 4,000 km segment between Pacific City and Honolulu and has been conducting such surveys across the entire planned route (see "Hawaiki transpacific submarine cable project advances to marine survey stage"). Hawaiki management has submitted the necessary application to the Federal Communications Commission as part of the U.S. permitting process for international submarine cable.
Amazon Web Services has signed as an initial customer of the cable system (see "Amazon Web Services signs with Hawaiki Submarine Cable"). Hawaiki has agreed to use Equinix as a data center partner in Australia (see "Equinix Sydney SY4 data center open for business").
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