Huawei wins NZ fibre to the home contract

Stephen Withers
Friday, 04 November 2011 15:12

IT Industry - Deals

 

New Zealand's Ultrafast Fibre will use Huawei equipment to deliver fibre to the home connections in certain parts of the country.

 

Like Australia, New Zealand is in the process of building a national high-speed broadband network. The NZ version of the NBN is the UFB, or Ultra Fast Broadband network.

 

iTWire recently reported that Ericsson had been awarded a contract to supply optical fibre cable for the bulk of the UFB.

It has now been announced that Huawei has won a contract from Ultrafast Fibre (part-owned by electricity distributor WEL Networks, which is itself wholly owned by a community trust) to provide network equipment that will be installed in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Taranaki and Wanganui regions, including Hamilton, Tauranga, Tokoroa, New Plymouth, Hawera, Wanganui, Te Awamutu and Cambridge.

The companies noted that the network will initially deliver gigabit speeds, but provides for future upgrades to 10G technology.

"Huawei's global experience in providing solutions for open access networks is matched by a solid understanding of the local area needs of New Zealand, including its proven track record in deploying national broadband fibre networks around the world," said Ultrafast Fibre CEO Julian Elder. "We know they will be the best partner for this work and their technical expertise on access networks will ultimately provide customers with leading edge access technologies."