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Northland trail blazes fibre optic route

Published on May 2^nd 2008, 1:12pm

The backbone of the network is already in place in Whangarei, where 900 businesses, schools and medical sites will be offered voice, data and video products before year end.

Northpower has signed a partnership with Telstra Clear as the first service provider, targeting small-to-medium enterprises with new IP products by Christmas.

Business users can expect up to 1GB/sec and private users up to 100MB/sec connectivity speeds, for uploading as well as downloading.

Northpower, the community-owned electricity distribution and contracting company, has budgeted $1.5 million for the backbone and then expects to spend up to $30 million over five years to extend fibre to a majority of its 52,000 customers.

The fibre network will have nothing to do with Telecom’s equipment and ADSL broadband.

It will be strung from Northpower’s poles and run through its underground ducts.

Initially the network is from the southern edge of Whangarei to beyond Kamo in the north, and out west along state highway 14 to Maunu mountain, from where Dargaville coverage will be initiated.

Businesses and private users up to 100 metres either side of the backbone will be connected on request.

However the new fibre technology, already in use in the US, Europe, Japan, Korea and China, is not much restricted by distance and cost.

Twenty kilometres is the range of fibre cable from Northpower sub-stations to passive optical splitters, which deliver 32 user lines not much thicker than cotton.

Transmission occurs both ways on those thin user lines, at different wavelengths, at flashing rates over one billion times a second.

This architecture lends itself to cost-effective suburban and rural services and Northpower intends to widen its coverage beyond the central city.

“We are hoping for a quick uptake in the city in order to be able to roll the fibre out to the rest of our community,” said Northpower chairman Warren Moyes.

About eight regions have talked with Telstra Clear about partnership to deliver the next generation of telecommunications services, but only Northland has made the business case work and begun installation.

Telstra Clear chief executive Allan Freeth said Northpower had taken the initiative offered by ethernet passive optical network (EPON) technology.

“What the politicians in Wellington talk about, you guys up here do it,” he told a launch function for local businesses and representatives in Whangarei this week.

Around the world there has been a lag time between local loop unbundling and fibre optics of about eight years, but in New Zealand that looks like shrinking to 18 months, Dr Freeth suggested.

Telecommunications companies and other broadband service and content providers, now have to plan with overlapping technologies.

“It is comparatively easy to build a network but keeping it running is not so easy,” he said.

Broadband products may be no cheaper in future, although competition will keep prices down, but data speeds will be greatly increased, Dr Freeth concluded.

Northpower has employed a large team of fibre system engineers and jointers for installing the networks.

It has over 700 employees in all, with a turnover of $150 million, two-thirds of which comes from contracting services in 10 North Island locations, and in Perth, Western Australia.

Already other regions have approached Northpower to replicate the EPON installation plans, though Northland has to come first.

Telstra Clear has committed $1 million to an upgrade of its Auckland-Whangarei fibre cables and it has the Australian and US undersea connections to bring ultra-fast content to Northland.

Dr Freeth said his family members watch about half of their television on computers, downloading programmes from around the world.

Telstra Clear and Northpower have to connect their respective systems during the rest of 2008.

Mr Moyes said the fibre optics initiative paralleled the beginnings of electricity reticulation.

The open-access approach fitted very well with Northpower’s community trust ownership.

Northpower was delighted and challenged to bring high-speed broadband at very competitive charges to the people of Whangarei at first, and then Northland.

“When we looked at community installations of EPON overseas, like the Jackson Energy Authority in Tennessee, we were amazed at what they could deliver,” Mr Moyes said.

“We don’t have to wait behind the big cities for connectivity and services.”

Northpower began on the fibre backbone so as to service its own depots, but quickly realised it could be dramatically scaled up for community open-access.

EPON networks are not affected by lightning or other electrical disturbances, such as electric fencing.

There is no additional visual impact, as the fibre cables hang alongside power cables.

“We believe we are building fibre assets which will last 40 to 60 years,” Mr Moyes said.

Compared with Northpower’s assets (at current replacement value) of $400 million, this fibre project is not a stretch financially, said chief executive Mark Gatland.

However, it is a pioneering project for New Zealand and existing businesses in power reticulation and contracting have to continue uninterrupted to their present high standards. The level of public interest in these new digital services will be important.

“If broadband through fibre connects with people in the region, it will happen,” he said.

Read the article on the National Business Review’s website

Find out more about our Fibre developments in the Fibre Network Section

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