Does Dotcom Have New Zealand Wired? Not Yet.

It has been a big week for New Zealand's resident German millionaire Internet impresario. Rather than sit back in his sprawling, manicured mansion on the outskirts of Auckland and contemplate his possible extradition to the United States on fraud and copyright charges, he chose to act. Rather than settle in to an afternoon of Segway riding, swimming-pool cavorting and computer gaming, Kim Dotcom, instead, made some rather large pronouncements.

As with almost all his public statements these days, the news came through Twitter, where Dotcom, formally Kim Schmitz, has amassed almost 150,000 followers.

First, he teased last week at a comeback of Megaupload â€" the $500 million Internet hosting giant that was spectacularly shut down earlier this year after a police raid on his $30 million residence west of Auckland.

On Oct. 31, Dotcom announced that the countdown to the start of a new hosting site had begun. It would be complete in one hour.

“Servers o verloaded. Adding capacity,” he wrote, summoning the spirit of Star Trek's ship's engineer, Montgomery Scott.

“Millions of users hitting at once. I'm delighted by the interest. But servers can't handle it.”

And then, finally, after suggesting the New Zealand Department of Justice might be illegally fiddling around in his servers, Dotcom announced his return to the Internet game.

“Me.ga â€" The return of the Jedi â€" May the Force be with us,” he wrote.

Due to go live in January, the site would give users direct control - and responsibility - over their files through the use of individualized inscription keys.

It was, for the millions of users that pushed Megaupload into becoming one of the most visited Web sites in the world, some welcome news.

There are a few obstacles, however. One might lie with Dotcom's own words upon his arrest earlier this year on accusations of copyright infringement.

“I can assure the court that I have no intention and there is no risk of my reactivating the Megaupload.com Web site or establishing a similar Internet-based business during the period until the resolution of the extradition proceedings,” he said, according to court documents.

Officials in the United States say his decision could open him up to further charges.

The other is that the country of Gabon, in central Africa, has suspended the Web site domain www.me.ga.

The Gabonese government said it was immediately suspending the site to “protect intellectual property rights” and “fight cybercrime effectively,” the phys.org Web site reported. It was due to be hosted on Gabon's .ga domain.

But if that hoopla was not enough, Dotcom took another step.

Pacific Fibre was a project to bring high-speed Internet broadband to New Zealand, connecting it to the United States via Australia with a 8,000-mile-long fiber cable. It would double the country's bandwidth and cost about $ 330 million. In August, the project floundered with its founder, the Internet millionaire Sam Morgan, saying it had failed to attract enough capital.

Enter Dotcom, who announced he would try to push the project forward.

“Power is becoming the biggest cost factor for data centers around the world,” he said. “With its own cable, cheap power and connectivity New Zealand could attract foreign Internet business.”

The plan has piqued the interest of politicians and industry.

“If anyone can put together a deal like this, then it would be Kim Dotcom,” said Paul Brislen, the chief executive of the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand.

Even Prime Minister John Key, who has had his hands full fighting off the consequences of a loose tongue, said Dotcom's efforts would be a positive step.

For such a deal to go through, Dotcom would not only need the money, the majority of which has been frozen, but as the director of Pacific Fibre, Rod Drury, noted on Twitter: “While I admire the @KimDotcom #megacable plan, there is a tiny flaw. US permission required to connect to USA.”

And that, considering the saga that has unfolded in trying to bring Dotcom and his co-accused to trial, is unlikely to happen.

The New Zealand authorities, who acted on behalf of the United States, have been required to give back to Dotcom about $6 million in frozen assets after a court ruled the initial warrant used to raid his mansion was unlawful. And the country's foreign spy agency was embarrassed after it unlawfully intercepted information in preparation for the raid.

The Government Communications Security Bureau is responsible for monitoring the communications of foreign nations and cannot monitor New Zealand residents or citizens. The police reportedly told the bureau that Dotcom was a foreign national. He is, in fact, a resident.

Whatever happens with the fiber-optic cable project, Dotcom c ontinues to receive good news - despite being out on bail since January. According to at least one commentator, if New Zealand had a man of the year award, Dotcom would be top of the list.

And that bad news? The Gabon communication minister, Blaise Louembe, said the African country could not “serve as a platform or screen for committing acts aimed at violating copyrights, nor be used by unscrupulous people.”

Dotcom suggested that Gabon was merely pandering to U.S. orders.

“Gabon oil income is 60% of state revenues. Over half of Gabon's crude oil shipments go to the US” he wrote on Twitter. “This just demonstrates the bad faith witch hunt the US government is on.”