Kim Dotcom offers free internet with own submarine cable
Revives collapsed Pacific Fibre plan for New Zealand to USA link
Posted in Networks, 4th November 2012 09:27 GMT
Free whitepaper – A private Cloud-based approach
Kim Dotcom has told the world he wants to get into the submarine cable business.
Dotcom’s plan is to revive a company called Pacific Fibre that, as we reported last August, wanted to build a USA-to-New Zealand cable, but sank for lack of funds.
New Zealand has few submarine cables connections to the world, which keeps the cost of landed data high and therefore means local internet service providers charge prices that seem less-than-generous compared to ISPs in other parts of the world. Those costs are also presumably bad news for Dotcom’s new venture, me.ga, as it will ship an awful lot of data to and from the land of the long white cloud.
Dotcom announced his scheme on Twitter, as follows:
“The new Mega company will be based in NZ & become it's most valuable IT biz. I will relaunch Pacific Fibre. Free broadband for all Kiwi's :)”
That’s Dotcom’s rogue apostrophe, by the way.
He’s since added this Tweet:
"One way or another New Zealand needs Pacific Fibre. I think it is important to reboot efforts to make it happen."
A day later he emitted the following:
“One thing is clear after receiving over 1000 positive messages about Pacific Fibre today. NZ wants it. Let's do it.”
Just how Dotcom will revive the plan, or deliver free broadband to all Kiwis remains unclear, but he has also promised a new white paper explaining how me.ga will work, and added another modest missive to the effect that:
"Seeing interest from Arab investors. They see an opportunity to own a big chunk of the Internet? Me.ga & Megabox will be huge."
The Register has requested an interview with Dotcom to learn more about his plans. ®
Free whitepaper – AccelOps’ Unified Infrastructure Management Examined
Send corrections
Reg Reader Research: SaaS based Email and Office Productivity Tools
High Performance for All
Nemertes Research: Mobile Security Challenge Emerges
Forrester Study: The Total Economic Impact of
The Benefits of a Hybrid Security Architecture
