RES 043 Draft 01 2020-2022 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Infrastructure Segments Because of Hawaii's unique geography, four distinct segments comprise the broadband infrastructure in the State: (1) trans -Pacific undersea cables; (2) interisland undersea cables; (3) on -island (terrestrial) infrastructure; and (4) "last mile" infrastructure. Transpacific Connectivity. Hawaii's broadband "lifeline" is transpacific connectivity, achieved primarily through the use of costly submarine fiber optic cable to the mainland U.S. and Asia. While transpacific telecommunications cables once needed to land in Hawaii as a technological necessity, making Hawaii a crossroad for transpacific telecommunications, advancements in submarine fiber optic technology now allow transpacific crossings to bypass Hawaii and connect Asia and North America directly 2009. There is no pending funded major transpacific system with current plans to land in Hawaii. Concerns regarding the adequacy of bandwidth available for out-of-state connectivity led the Broadband Task Force to recommend that the State take steps to encourage new fiber system landings in Hawaii. • New cables with landings in Hawaii are SEA -US (2017) and Hawaiki (2018). This new capacity will be sufficient to serve Hawaii in the near future. Nevertheless, the combination of increased costs coupled with the expected exponential growth of demand for broadband capacity by both consumers and businesses, means that a strategy to upgrade this segment of the State's broadband infrastructure must be developed now. In addition, as the Asia market and its accompanying telecommunication needs grow, including demand for co - location services and back up services, some local telecom and data center businesses suggest that, with some encouragement, Hawaii could become a desired destination for such services. For this reason, the State has been asked to include in its efforts activities to increase transpacific capacity in order to capitalize on this future growth, and the State is in fact actively working on plans to do so. Based upon available data on the costs of other similar transpacific cable projects planned or completed, the cost to lay a cable from Hawaii to the mainland U.S. or to Asia is estimated to be in the range of $250 million dollars. Because current technology allows new transpacific fibers to bypass Hawaii. • Interisland Connectivity. Unlike mainland U.S. states that can easily extend