Hawaiki chief executive Remi Galasso, Communications Minister Amy Adams, Prime Minister John Key, Hawaii investors Malcolm Dick and Sir Eion Edgar and Te Uri O Hau/Ngati Whatua chairman Russell Kemp mark the spot for Hawaiki's NZ landing station.

Hawaiki Cable is pointing to another milestone as preparations continue for its $500 million internet cable to the United States.

The company held a "ground-breaking" ceremony at Mangawhai Heads, north of Auckland, on Wednesday morning, where the construction of its New Zealand landing station is due to be completed by the middle of next year.

The event, attended by about 100 guests including Prime Minister John Key, is a show of confidence that New Zealand's second trans-Pacific internet cable is proceeding to plan.

SUPPLIED Hawaiki cable will land in New Zealand at Bream Tail Farm, near Mangawhai Heads.

Hawaiki's cable has been designed to connect New Zealand and Australia to the United States via Hawaii and is due to be in service in June 2018.

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It will compete with the Southern Cross Cable, half owned by Spark, which currently has a monopoly on the direct route for communications traffics from New Zealand to Hawaii and on to the US.

Other expected guests at the ground-breaking ceremony were Vodafone New Zealand chief executive Russell Stanners and Nicole Ferguson, chief executive of Crown-owned research network operator Reannz.

Most of the construction costs of the cable will be met by pre-sales to customers and by loans, which Hawaiki says are in place.

Reannz paid a multimillion dollar advance to Auckland-based Hawaiki in June as part of a contract under which it has agreed to buy $65 million-worth of capacity on the cable.

Vodafone is also understood to have agreed to buy capacity on the cable, but it would not comment on whether it had handed over any funding as yet.

Spokeswoman Andrea Brady said funding was not something Vodafone was talking about "at this point in time".

Other customers previously announced by Hawaiki include Amazon Web Services.

Australian telecommunications heavyweight TPG was one of a number of Australian firms which signed letters of intent to buy capacity on the cable in 2013.

Hawaiki chief executive Remi Galasso said some customers were "not willing to communicate and we do respect this".

Hawaiki contracted Australian surveying firm EGS to start a five-month survey of the route for cable in July, using a former New Zealand warship which has been renamed RV Geo Resolution.

Last month, Hawaiki Cable said United States contractor TE SubCom had made the first 1000 kilometres of the 14,000km fibre-optic cable and manufacturing had begun of the undersea repeaters that will boost signals as they travel along the cable, under the sea.

Hawaiki investor and chairman Sir Eion Edgar said the cable would bring "huge benefits to New Zealand in terms of greater capacity, competition in internet pricing, resilience and security of supply, and increased opportunities for our technology and IT industries".

David Wilson, chief executive of economic development agency Northland Inc, said the cable was a key infrastructure project for the region. "For Northland, it is ... the opportunity to strengthen and diversify our economy."