Nextgen picks Alcatel-Lucent for regional backbone blackspots network

Stuart Corner
Friday, 22 January 2010 07:34

Business IT - Networking

Nextgen Networks has chosen Alcatel-Lucent to supply the optical switching and transmission equipment for the fibre optic links it will install in regional Australia under the Government's Regional Backbone Black spots programme.

Nextgen was named in December 2009 as the winner of the $250 million contract and will install 6,0000km of new fibre from Toowoomba to Darwin, Perth to Geraldton, Shepparton through Mildura to Adelaide, Mildura to Broken Hill, Sale to Wonthaggi and Adelaide to Victor Harbour and on to Mount Barker serving approximately 395,000 people in over 60 regional towns.

In total the network will provide access points to six priority blackspots for competitive backhaul in regional Australia, and will provide another 102 competitive backbone access points in every mainland state. It will be used by retail ISPs to provide ADSL2+ services in these locations.

Alcatel-Lucent will be the major optical equipment supplier to Nextgen Networks and will deliver its longhaul dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) platform, photonic service switches (PSS) and transport service switches (TSS) as the new fibre links are built out over the next 18 months.

Nextgen managing director, Phil Sykes, said: "Based on their global optical leadership and an established, successful eight year partnership with us, Alcatel-Lucent was the obvious choice to work with to meet Australia's growing demand for backhaul capacity."

Lucent Technologies was one of the instigators of the Nextgen Network providing its technology and vendor finance for the $850m system. It lost many millions of dollars when the bankrupt company was sold to its present owner, Leighton Holdings, for a few tens of millions of dollars.

Alcatel-Lucent will provide its 1626 Light Manager and 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) regional DWDM products and its 1850 Transport Service Switch. Billed as a new class of multiservice transport platform that supports any mix of traffic, from all-circuit to all packet, with carrier class levels of reliability.

The company will also provide network management services from its Global Network Operations Centre (GNOC) in Sydney to support Nextgen's own service management centre.