Reel-time milestone for Pacific cable venture

The first 7000 kilometres of a new internet cable that will connect New Zealand to the United States is being loaded by hand onto giant spools on a ship in New Hampshire.

Remi Galasso, chief executive of Auckland-based Hawaiki Cable, said the start of marine operations for the $500 million cable was a ‘‘major milestone’’.

Telecommunications Users Association chief executive Craig Young said in March that consumers shouldn’t get too excited about what the new cable might mean for broadband bills.

But the extra connectivity would be important to ensure ‘‘diversity’’ in case of cable outages and to prevent pricing increases.

The Hawaiki cable will connect New Zealand and Australia to the US, via Hawaii, breaking Southern Cross Cable’s 17-year monopoly on the near-direct US-NEW Zealand route.

Galasso said manufacturing of the entire cable was now complete, and he hoped it might be in service ahead of schedule, possibly before June next year.

US contractor TE Subcom, which is providing some of the finance for the cable, began loading the first portion on to a massive spool on a cable-laying ship on Wednesday.

Loading is due to be complete early next month and then the ship will set sail for Australia to begin laying the section between Sydney and New Zealand to close to Hawaii.

Galasso said the loading of the cable would take about a month because it had to be done manually. ‘‘There is no machine to do it.’’

A second cable ship will be loaded in August, to lay the section from Oregon, with the two sections due to be connected by March next year.

Southern Cross’ existing cable network is due to remain in service until at least 2030.

Southern Cross said in May that it had received letters of intent from three telecommunications companies in Australia and New Zealand and four Pacific islands to buy capacity on a new cable, called Next, that it intends to lay across the Pacific to the US by 2019.

Galasso said the market needed more cable, especially in Australia. But in Hawaiki’s experience, it was tough to get customer contracts in place.

‘‘We have been through that ourselves. You start with ‘letters of intent’, and if you are successful you get binding contracts.’’