Kordia pushes on with link

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Kordia is pushing ahead with plans to build a transtasman fibre link despite a long-term commitment to competitor Southern Cross.

Kordia chief executive Geoff Hunt said it had signed a 10-year deal to buy transtasman capacity on the existing Southern Cross cable, part-owned by Telecom, with plans to ink a deal on a leg to the United States.

He said the company would soon outgrow the capacity provided by that deal and was pursuing plans to run out a cable to Australia with its OptiKor project.

Hunt said the OptiKor was different to a plan by entrepreneurs Sam Morgan, Rod Drury and Stephen Tindall, to link Australia and New Zealand to the United States under the Pacific Fibre banner.

"Theirs is really getting traffic, mainly from Australia, via New Zealand up to the US. Our project is a regional project. It's about that transtasman connectivity, it's about providing a diverse route across the Tasman."

Hunt said he can only see the market for one additional cable to Australia.

"We're certainly talking to Pacific Fibre," he said. "Our cables are for different purposes and different markets but there is a common thing across the Tasman."

The new cable, expected to cost US$100 million ($134 million), would be funded by a mix of debt and equity from customers.