Kordia chief executive Geoff Hunt – whose mission to build a second cable across the Tasman has been ignored by the present government – seems to have found a partner in the new venture launched this afternoon by Rod Drury, Sir Stephen Tindall and Sam Morgan.
The government has been cool on providing any direct funding for a second fibre link, which would break the 50% Telecom-owned Southern Cross Cable’s monopoly.
Communications Minister Steven Joyce has looked asked the SOE to build a business case, but Kordia’s on-again-off-again negotiations with potential partner Pipe Networks have dragged on for more than two years.
Mr Hunt said that Kordia has been in discussions with Mr Drury and others over the past few months, and is looking forward to working with them but that “It’ll take more than a lone player to make that happen by 2012,” says Hunt.
“It makes sense for Kordia to team up with Pacific Fibre. Kordia's focus, however, will remain transtasman.”
Pacific Fibre co-founder Rod Drury in turn told NBR he was “very open” to working with the Crown company, and cooperating with the New Zealand and Australian governments in general.
Comments and questions2
without doubt the three fibreteers are looking to save new zealand from final damnation. Drury wants speed, Morgan and Sir Rouge want to give back to society. the problem is outsourcing. two of the three have built their business cases on cheap and cheerful. you have to imagine this group of three will fall out over quality. The NZ Telcos and the government should jump on this initaitive and take a share, if only to manage it, otherwise the NZ market will be cherry picked and there will be no telco jobs in NZ.
There is plenty of spare capacity on Telecoms Southern Cross cable, just no competition or incentitive for them to lower prices. When competition does arrive they will dramatically lower their prices.
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