There's only 2 connections to the USA at the moment, and SCC charges monopoly prices. There is another AU<>NZ<>USA connection being built in 2014 and another AU<>NZ connection built in 2013 (the 2 grey lines). Southern Cross already dropped their prices 44% in response.
I was talking to an astronomer the other day who mentioned that they're trying to set up a big distributed radio-astronomy rig out in the desert. One of the consequences is that this thing is going to be producing a ton of data - I think he mentioned on the order of petabytes-per-second. So they're trying to work with the Australian government and Telcos to defray the costs by offering the connection as a service, as well. So the cost could drop, soon.
Or it could just be offered as a $300 MEGA-SKYLINK-INTERTRON.
