Submarine urged for cheaper web

Pacnet chief executive Bill Barney told BusinessDay yesterday that he was sceptical about the benefits of the Government's proposed $43 billion national broadband network, and that a new submarine cable would be a more effective way of improving broadband access for Australians.

Mr Barney, whose Hong Kong-based company owns about two-thirds of Asia's submarine fibre-optic cable, said the lack of competition meant Australian telcos were paying much more than international counterparts for access to the 10 gigabit-a-second undersea fibre-optic cables.

"Your last-mile coverage isn't bad compared to most countries. It would put you in the top 10 around the world. Your problem is it costs about $30 million to buy a 10G wave into the country from the United States," Mr Barney said.

"The price everywhere else, for example in Asia, is less than $2 million. So you're paying 15 times the price to get access to content out of the United States than anyone else.

"This dwarfs the last-mile problem. The Government should either build a cable themselves or get an independent cable that all of the players can have access to at a very low cost, it's subsidised.

"Even if you have fibre to the home in the rural parts of the Hunter Valley, that person has fibre now, but they still have to pay a price they can't afford to get access to content from the United States."

There are currently three submarine links into Australia the Southern Cross cable to the US (part-owned by Optus), the Australia-Japan cable (part-owned by Telstra) and Telstra's Endeavour cable to Hawaii.

A cable to Guam built by Pipe Networks is expected to begin operations next month.