Huawei wins Kiwi fibre contract

Chinese vendor Huawei has been awarded a contract to supply fibre equipment for the Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) network being built in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand.

The multi-million contact was awarded by Enable Networks and involves the provision of all network equipment for the project, including fibre ducting, fibre optic cables and open access layer two network solutions.

It also involves the provision of service expertise required for the 3,500 kilometre UFB network that will extend across Christchurch and into growing centres in Waimakariri and Selwyn Districts.

This is the second major order Huawei has won for New Zealand’s UFB project, the first being awarded late last year and involving equipment for the network in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Taranaki and Wanganui regions.

Other vendors which have won a role in the UFB project include Alcatel-Lucent, which is providing its IP/MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) solution for the areas of Hawke’s Bay, Rotorua and Taupo; and Ericsson, which has been selected to provide Gigabit Passive Optical Networking (GPON) technology for the Northpower Fibre Network being built in Whangarei in the far north of the North Island.

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.