Ericsson has been chosen by Chorus, the wholesale arm that will soon be spun out of Telecom New Zealand, to provide fiber cable for its contribution to the country's Ultra Fast Broadband (UFB) network initiative.
Although financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, Melanie Marhsall, a Chorus spokesperson said in a Computerworld New Zealand article that the equipment installation will begin later this month.
"Ericsson will provide the bulk of the fibre, though there may be some specialist needs in some areas, which could need a different type of fibre," she said. "The deal is not exclusive."
Under the terms of the agreement, Ericsson will supply mainly necessary optical infrastructure, including fiber cable, microduct, tools and other related elements.
Of course, Ericsson's win is a loss for Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), one of Telecom New Zealand's main network infrastructure suppliers. Additionally, the deal is also a blow to Huawei, which had also made a bid to get a piece of the UFB business.
However, not all is lost at Alcatel-Lucent as the company still has a chance to get a piece of Chorus' Layer 2 network business, including edge router GPON equipment to deliver services to premises.
For more:
- National Business Review has this article
- Computerworld New Zealand has this article
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