Telstra will buy 25 percent stake in Southern Cross Cable Network (SCCN) and capacity on both the existing network and the new Southern Cross NEXT subsea cable.
Financial details were not disclosed.

Spark New Zealand, Singtel and Verizon Business are the shareholders of Southern Cross Cable Network.

SCCN owns and operates the trans-Pacific Southern Cross Cable and has initiated work on the Southern Cross NEXT cable.

Telstra is an existing customer of Southern Cross Cable Network. “This route is extremely important to our business as US to Australia traffic accounts for more than 80 percent of all the internet traffic to Australia,” Telstra Group Executive for Enterprise Michael Ebeid said.

The Southern Cross NEXT project, which aims for completion by the end of 2020, completed significant work including pre-sales, marine survey, landing arrangements, Pacific Island agreements, detail design and the cable RFT.

Southern Cross NEXT, a new 12,250 kilometre cable system, will be providing data-centre connectivity between Sydney, Auckland, and Los Angeles. It will be the lowest latency path from Australia and New Zealand to the United States.

Southern Cross NEXT is expected to cost around $300 million, and is designed to carry 72 Terabits of traffic.

“The addition of the new Southern Cross NEXT route to the existing platform will provide existing and future customers with further resiliency and connectivity options between Australia/New Zealand and to the US via Los Angeles,” Southern Cross Cables CEO Anthony Briscoe said.