EonFibre launches Zone Direct for New Zealand data centres

EonFibre has launched Zone Direct for data centre developers and network operators planning to enter or expand in New Zealand. The product targets projects in six data centre zones identified by Invest New Zealand.

Zone Direct is intended to provide connectivity from a proposed New Zealand data centre campus to offshore customers, including regional routes, links to existing and planned data centres, cable landing stations and international bandwidth.

The launch comes as New Zealand seeks to attract investment in digital infrastructure by promoting access to renewable electricity, land and stable operating conditions. Invest New Zealand has identified North Waikato, Taupō, Taranaki, Manawatū, South Canterbury and Central Otago as advantaged zones for data centre development, chosen for lead times to power, access to high-voltage infrastructure and backhaul fibre.

The offer provides a connectivity brief for each zone, including route options, physical diversity and indicative latency to New Zealand's international cable landing stations, Australia and the United States. It also includes site connectivity assessments during site selection, a single point of contact from early assessment through network planning and delivery, and the design, build, operation and maintenance of campus connectivity networks.

Richard Mooney, Chief Executive Officer of EonFibre, said the company wants to engage with investors while projects are still at an early stage.

"The case for data centres in New Zealand starts with renewable power, land and stability," Mooney said. "Investors also need to know how capacity at a new campus will reach customers in Australia, Asia and the United States. National and international bandwidth is our core business. We want to be part of those conversations early, while sites are still being chosen, to create efficiencies across development and operations."

Network footprint

EonFibre operates more than 11,000km of fibre across New Zealand, from Whangārei to Invercargill. Its network includes metro fibre rings in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch, three diverse routes between the North and South Islands, and the Aqualink domestic submarine cable.

Its infrastructure reaches major data centres and exchange sites across the country, including Auckland clusters in Albany, Westgate, the CBD and Silverdale. EonFibre is also a co-owner of the Tasman Global Access cable to Sydney and sells capacity on the Hawaiki and Southern Cross systems.

Outside New Zealand, EonFibre has points of presence in the United States and Australia and works with global operators for onward connectivity. It already supplies infrastructure to global hyperscalers, including dedicated fibre networks, subsea cable landing and lit capacity.

The company has also worked with Google on fibre infrastructure linked to the Honomoana cable, which lands north of Auckland.

Site questions

The new offer is built around practical issues data centre developers assess before committing to a site. These include the number of physically separate fibre routes available, the distance to international cable systems and the likely time needed to deliver bandwidth to a new campus.

"Developers want to know how many physically separate routes reach a site, how far it is to the international cables, and how quickly capacity can be delivered," Mooney said. "Because we hold both the national routes and the international capacity, we can answer those questions and deliver the service end to end, from the campus to Sydney or the United States."

Zone Direct draws on EonFibre's existing services, including Direct Fibre, FlexWave managed wavelengths of up to 400 Gbit/s, data centre interconnection and international capacity. EonFibre works directly with developers, hyperscalers, carriers and data centre operators, with commercial terms tailored to long-term infrastructure projects.