Ericsson wins role in New Zealand's Ultra-Fast Broadband project

Ericsson has been selected to supply Gigabit Passive Optical Networking (GPON) technology for the Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) networks being built in New Zealand.

The Swedish vendor is to provide GPON technology for the Northpower Fibre Network in Whangarei in the far north of the North Island, which will be one of the first networks developed under the government’s UFB initiative.

The UFB initiative has been set up as a public-private partnership, with the state-owned Crown Fibre Holdings representing the government and forming alliances with local partners, including Northpower, UltraFast Fibre (which awarded the contract to Huawei), Enable Networks and Chorus.

The New Zealand government has allocated public funds of NZD 1.5bn ($1.2bn) for the project, which aims to connect 75 per cent of the country’s population by 2019 and deliver speeds of 100 Mbps initially, with speed increases of up to 10 Gbps anticipated further down the line.

Other vendors which have won a role in the project recently include Huawei, which will supply equipment for the network in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Taranaki and Wanganui regions, and Alcatel-Lucent, which is providing its IP/MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) solution for the areas of Hawke’s Bay, Rotorua and Taupo.