Alca-Lu wins Nextgen backbone contract

Nextgen Networks chose Alcatel-Lucent to supply equipment for a fiber-optic backbone as part of the National Broadband Network (NBN) project in Australia.

A wholesale data carrier, Nextgen recently won a bid for government’s USD250 million Regional Backbone Blackspots Program to deliver competitive backhaul links into major regional centers.

Alca-Lu will be the major optical equipment supplier to Nextgen and will deliver its longhaul dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) platform, photonic service switches (PSS) and transport service switches (TSS) for the new fiber links, which will be build during the next 18 months.

The French-U.S. vendor also will provide network management services from its Global Network Operations Centre (GNOC) in Sydney. The construction of backbone transmission links will provide access points to six priority blackspots for competitive backhaul in regional Australia, and will provide another 102 competitive backbone access points in every mainland state.