A large positive, Rushworth said, was that Pacific Fibre would own a monopoly on the cable and wouldn't introduce a third or potentially fourth competitor to the submarine cable market. The company is already set to compete with Southern Cross - which already operates fibre between Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii - as well as Kordia, which has plans in motion for a new trans-Tasmania submarine cable.

"We're not sharing the market with Pacnet; they'll be operating at a retail level buying retail products off us or off Southern Cross but they won't have the same underlying cost infrastructure with us so they'll be at a disadvantage," Rushworth said.

The 13,600 kilometre cable ultimately aims to provide bandwidth capacity of 5.12 terabits per second to peering exchanges in New Zealand and Australia when it is lit up by 2013.