This upgrade means the total network’s lit capacity will now reach 1.4 Terabits per second and by March this will increase to 1.6 Terabits and to 2 Terabits by December. The company also states that it has the capacity to further upgrade the network to at least 6 Terabits by December 2013. This essentially indicates that Southern Cross Cable is trying to align it’s network to meet the growing demand of the market and that of the government’s National Broadband Network project.

So what does this mean and how will it affect us? Well, more availability of International capacity means that SCC can expand their supply. Recent SCC upgrades have witnessed increase ISP competition that resulted in data cap increases and price reduction. So perhaps 2012 may once again see some Internet Service Providers discounting prices, increasing data caps or simply providing better value for money propositions.

“With lower marginal capacity cost we have reduced our prices to the US from both New Zealand and Australia by 44%”

“it’s particularly pleasing to see how ISP competition has resulted in big increases to retail data caps over the last year for both Australian and New Zealand internet users, and to see the retail cost of data continuing to fall. Our new initiatives are again designed to support this process as another step towards the new NBN and UFB environments”

- Ross Pfeffer, Southern Cross Sales and Marketing Director.

Source: Southern Cross Capacity Up and Price Down – Again

Beset by many obstacle such as the recent financial crisis, funding uncertainties, Industry threats along with many knockers who stated the project could not be achieved, Pipe Networks displayed commendable resilience (thanks to support from ISP’s Internode, iiNet and co). A new broadband cable pipe of PPC-1′s capacity will in effect, break the current duopoly that the likes of Optus and Telstra have through Southern Cross and Australia Japan Cable.

Industry experts are split on whether or not the PPC-1 cable prospects are enough to curve the exorbitant prices that Australian’s pay for the Broadband Usage Data. Compared to the U.S., Australians are paying around the same for their Broadband plans (if not more), however we don’t have true ‘unlimited’ usage within our Broadband contracts or additional fully fledged services such as IPTV either.

The Broadband and Telecommunication Industry is certainly an up and down ball game. On one hand we’re witnessing Pipe Networks introduce a new cable which is expected to reduce Broadband costs (or raise limits) by providing more International data, whereas on the other hand this project appears to be countered by the ACCC who have done a recent back flip by confirming that Telstra will be able to inflate their Unbundled Local Loop Services (ULLS) prices over the next three years.

Nonetheless, after further testing is completed at locations that include Papua New Guinea, Tokyo and San Jose, it’s believed that the new Pipe Networks PPC-1 Submarine Cable will become operational this coming 8th October, 2009. It’s just a pity the celebrations may not last long for the consumers who are looking forward to cheaper Broadband. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what eventuates.

When an executive from a leading Australian ISP threatens to ‘cut you off at the knees’ one can’t help but think theres something pretty serious going down. What’s more the threat came across as if the person was drunk, nice!

“I think their term was that they threatened to ‘cut us off at the knees’ and ‘make us their special project’. So it was a pretty interesting phone call,” Mr Slattery said. “I think he was drunk.”

Confused? OK, if you’re not up-to-date with the scenario it goes a little something like this….. PIPE Networks, who is Australia’s largest peering provider, has embarked on a project which consists on rolling out a 9000km submarine fibre-optic data link from Australia to Guam (U.S.). After this is in place and switched on, sometime in August 2009, it is believed that it should go a long way in making Broadband prices/usage limits more competitive and thus apply a little more pressure on the current duopoly of Telstra and Optus. Starting to get the picture?

You see, both Telstra and Optus, who are big players in the ISP market, also own huge shares in other cable links that deliver data in and out of Australia. Telstra have a 47% share in the Australian Japan Cable while Optus has a 40% stake in Southern Cross Cable. So up until now, these two Telecommunication providers have basically been able to control the price of broadband and data usage limits to a degree.

It’s believed that the new PIPE Networks undersea cable will significantly reduce the cost of International bandwidth and force further competition within the Australian Broadband Industry. PIPE Network chief executive Bevan Slattery, who led the revival of the project from the clutches of the Q4 2008 financial crisis, said the journey had been ‘arduous’, while iiNet’s managing director Michael Malone indicated that his company is seeking to pass on the cost saving to the consumer by increasing bandwidth limits which could be anywhere up to 15%. iiNet are one of two other  ISPs, namely Primus and Internode, who have invested in the submarine cable project.

If what Mr Slattery said about the threat is true, in my opinion it’s pretty bloody bad form by a leading Telecommunication provider to carry on like this and threaten PIPE Networks …This might be the nature of business, but I’m sure that most Australian broadband consumers out there would agree with me on that one. I just hope that iiNet and co deliver on their expectations and pass on the value to the consumer once the project is operational. Good luck PIPE!