Pacific Fibre formalises 2014 launch in wake of US$200m in sales

Significant news has been received this morning from Pacific Fibre – the company planning to build a new high speed internet connection between the United States, New Zealand and Australia. Co-founder and Chairman Sam Morgan announced that they have “secured another significant sale to a U.S. customer, further de-risking the Pacific Fibre business for investors.” This bring total sales for Pacific Fibre to US$200 million.

Mr Morgan also advised that Pacific Fibre have set a timeframe on closing their financing – the raising of capital required for building their fibre optic cable across the pacific – linking the United States, New Zealand and Australia. “We have had great engagement with global institutional funds and are now bringing our fundraising to a close” said Mr Morgan. “We expect to announce completion in mid-June.”

The biggest part of the news was confirmation of a 2014 opening of the the new cable in Sydney. Its anticipated that Pacific Fibre’s launch will help reduce the price (and improve the speed) of internet connectivity between New Zealand, Australian and the United States.

“We will be cutting the ribbon on a new trans-Pacific cable in Sydney on July 16^th 2014 – introducing a more competitive market for international bandwidth and helping the NBN to deliver on the promise of vastly better connectivity.”

In highlighting the importance of the new undersea fibre optic cable, Pacific Fibre noted that the volume of data downloaded by Australians doubled between 2010 and 2011.

The Pacific Fibre cable will be of significant benefit to the long term success of New Zealand’s Ultra Fast Broadband (UFB) initiative – and Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN).

Looking for a start in IT Support?

Good news for those interested making a start (or a step up) in an IT Support career. Gorilla Technology (Auckland, New Zealand) is looking for a keen and enthusiastic person to join our team at a junior level. Could that be you?

Potential

We’re looking for someone who both learns technical things quickly and has great people skills. That person might already working in IT support or maybe they have just finished studying. It’s possible they are currently in a role at a call centre, or working at a retailer. All that doesn’t matter too much – one thing we are looking for is potential.

If you’re just looking for ‘another job’ then this probably isn’t the role for you. At Gorilla we work differently from other companies and we’re looking for someone who stands out from the crowd and is ready to grow.

The Gorilla Way

There is much to Gorilla’s special sauce (we call it ‘The Gorilla Way’) that differentiates us. From an employee perspective you’ll benefit from:
• Being part of a tight knit and friendly team who work closely together – supporting and learning from each other while sharing knowledge and ideas
• Working with the newest and best technologies available. As part of ‘The Gorilla Way’ we use the freshest technologies to make ourselves and our customers more successful. Currently we’re testing both Windows 8 and Apple OS X Mountain Lion in-house.
• Huge growth potential - most people move ahead faster than the industry standard for career development whilst at Gorilla

Skills

Skills that would be beneficial for you to bring to the table include:
• Great people skills and an ability to communicate with people at all levels
• Technical skills – such as: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008/R2, Mac OS X, Exchange Server 2007/2010, Forefront TMG Server, Cisco, Firewalls, TCP/IP, iOS, Linux

At Gorilla though, we don’t believe in technology for technology’s sake – using it has to make business sense so our team learn business and communication skills too. That helps them relate the benefits of great technology to our clients.

What next?

Note that applicants will need a drivers license and their own vehicle. If you’re keen to come aboard with Gorilla Technology then drop us a line with a covering letter and your CV and forward it to: careers@gorillatechnology.com

Second year rollout maps for NZ Ultra Fast Broadband

I was visiting the Chorus website this evening checking to see if there was any update on when I would get Ultra Fast Broadband fibre rolled out in my street. To my surprise Chorus had quietly updated their website with plans for their second year of rollouts. In hindsight it shouldn’t have been such a surprise as it was briefly mentioned at Orcon’s press conference this week that year rollout plans were due this week.

In a discussion with Orcon at their UFB pricing announcement this week I was advised that UFB should pass 50,000 homes, businesses and schools by mid-2012 and this is expected to increase to pass as many 125,000 properties by mid-2013. To check if your home, office or school is one of the lucky ones jump to the Chorus Fibre availability map, or visit the NZ UFB page on the NZ Tech Podcast website.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview: download now

This morning Microsoft have made the Windows 8 Consumer Preview (something we’d usually called a beta) available for download. You can locate it here and it’s available in both 32-bit and 64-bit variations.

This release is a jump forward from the Windows 8 Developer Preview made available last year. It’s likely that Windows 8 Consumer Preview will be made the primary operating system for many technology enthusiasts.

Windows 8 marks the first step away from the Windows desktop and start menu which was introduced with Windows 95 some 17 years ago. This release includes a ‘touch first’ interface that designed to be equally functional on tablets, laptops and desktop computers.

There are numerous new features that make use of the new user interface which draws from the Metro design language that Windows Phone has become known for. Also included is the Windows Store – a place to find and download apps.

Minimum system requirements are:

• 1 GHz or faster processor
• 1 GB RAM (32-bit install) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit install)
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit install) or 20 GB (64-bit install)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
• 1024 x 768 minimum screen resolution (or 1366x768 for the Snap feature)

(More information to follow)

Stay tuned to the NZ Tech Podcast as we’ll be featuring Windows 8 heavily on the next episode.

NZ Tech Podcast: Webstock special

This special edition of the NZ Tech Podcast features interviews from Webstock 2012. Paul Spain spoke with guests Raffi Krikorian (Twitter), Scott Hanselman (Microsoft) and Derek Handley (The Hyperfactory). He also chatted with Tim Fraser and Jeremy Geros from GoVocab who won the BNZ Startup Alley competition featured at Webstock.

Would you like to join the NZ Tech Podcast live? Most Tuesday evenings around 6pm or thereabouts we join with Geekzone for a live audio stream from the studio and a hosted chat room. Details here.

Get the Podcast here:

• Listen to Episode 57 directly
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Please look out for the latest NZ Tech Podcast updates via Twitter @NZTechPodcast, the NZTechPodcast.com website and facebook page.