media release
for immediate release

13 July 2011

REANNZ and Pacific Fibre capacity agreement is now confirmed

REANNZ and Pacific Fibre sign foundation customer agreement, based on previously announced terms.

REANNZ and Pacific Fibre announced today that they have signed a $91m definitive agreement for the supply of international capacity on the new Pacific Fibre cable system. The agreement was approved by the REANNZ board and by shareholding Ministers Hon Bill English and Hon Dr Wayne Mapp.

Donald Clark, outgoing REANNZ CEO, said “We are very happy to have completed the negotiations, marking substantial and rapid progress from the Key Commercial Terms announced in May. The contract sets REANNZ and KAREN up for lasting success, and is a critical part of delivering long-term unconstrained high performance networking for the research, education and innovation communities in New Zealand.”

REANNZ, which was founded by the Crown in 2005, has 129 member organisations with connections at 186 sites across New Zealand. The international capacity agreement will secure their ability to fully participate as part of a global network of over 100 Research and Education networks.

Mark Rushworth, CEO of Pacific Fibre confirmed the importance of the REANNZ commitment to the Pacific Fibre project. “Announcing REANNZ Key Terms in May gave important momentum to our engagement with our vendors, finance partners and other foundation customers. While today’s news marks another important step, we have also made considerable progress across the board. We want to thank REANNZ and all concerned for conducting a very smooth, fair and rapid tender and negotiation process. It showed how a well-run Government procurement process can support businesses such as ours, and we are offering considerable value to the KAREN community as a result.”

ends

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