Nextgen Networks
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Nextgen Networks is a wholly owned subsidiary of Vocus Group, an Australian-based international telecommunications company. Nextgen's Network is based on a geographically protected national network, with the
Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...
to
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
link utilising self-healing SDH two-fibre ring architecture. The Ring System covers
Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...
, Sydney, Canberra and
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
and a Flat Ring Link through to
Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
and
Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...
as well as covering 70 major and regional population centres along the route. The Network covers a total of 17,000 km.


History

The Network was constructed in 2002 and cost around $850 million to construct as a joint venture of Leighton Contractors ($140 million) and
Macquarie Bank Macquarie Group Limited () is an Australian global financial services group. Headquartered and listed in Australia (), Macquarie employs more than 17,000 staff in 33 markets, is the world's largest infrastructure asset manager and Australia's t ...
using state of the art equipment from suppliers such as
Lucent Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the divestiture of the former AT&T Technologies business u ...
and financed by a consortium including Leighton Holdings, Macquarie Bank, National Australia Bank,
Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...
, UBS Capital and
WestLB WestLB AG (derived from ''Westdeutsche Landesbank'', i.e. "Western German state Bank") was a European commercial bank based in Düsseldorf, Germany which was mainly owned by the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Landesbanks are a group of pa ...
. Visionstream (another subsidiary of Leightons) constructed the Network consisting of four network loops each with 12 fibre pairs, with each fibre pair capable of 800Gbit/s. The network owners intention was to provide the highest network quality, which led to the use of using many state of the art technologies (at the time).
Lucent Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the divestiture of the former AT&T Technologies business u ...
supplied the TrueWave RS G655 Fibre developed by
Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial Research and development, research and scientific developm ...
to provide high bandwidth capacity and specially designed for long distance DWDM optical cables. Being a Non-zero dispersion shifted fibre it has minimum light dispersion, allowing signals to travel long distances with enough dispersion to prevent crosstalk from adjacent signals. It was built to Australian conditions to prevent against not only rodents but
wombat Wombats are short-legged, muscular quadrupedal marsupials that are native to Australia. They are about in length with small, stubby tails and weigh between . All three of the extant species are members of the family Vombatidae. They are ada ...
s, Christmas tree roots and erosion from black soil.
Lucent Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the divestiture of the former AT&T Technologies business u ...
also supplied newest technology WaveStar OLS 400G
DWDM In fiber-optic communications, wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) is a technology which multiplexes a number of optical carrier signals onto a single optical fiber by using different wavelengths (i.e., colors) of laser light. This techni ...
systems and WaveStar Bandwidth Manager. Nettest's QUESTfiber technology supplied the remote fibre test system (the largest network of its type in the Australia Pacific region) within the Nextgen Networks
DWDM In fiber-optic communications, wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) is a technology which multiplexes a number of optical carrier signals onto a single optical fiber by using different wavelengths (i.e., colors) of laser light. This techni ...
network. This gives the benefit of a fully managed network backbone with minimal downtime, when a fault is detected the location is known to within a few metres, as well as showing the health of the cables and its segments, allowing for preemptive maintenance where cable is showing signs of distress.


The building of the network

Visionstream commenced building of the Network on 15 June 2001 with the first soil being turned and commencement of laying the fibre 40 km west of
Young, New South Wales Young is a town in the South West Slopes region of New South Wales, Australia and the largest town in the Hilltops Region. The "Lambing Flat" Post Office opened on 1 March 1861 and was renamed "Young" in 1863. Young is marketed as the Cherry Ca ...
at Milvale, after many months of project management planning which included sourcing of materials, negotiating access along the route that the cable and equipment will travel, environmental management and working with indigenous leaders to fully gps map sensitive areas to avoid damage. The project was brought in ahead of schedule in May 2003, construction was handed over from Visionstream to Nextgen Networks in four main Stages occurring at the following dates. Activities included route construction, urban works, cultural heritage walkouts and the construction of Primary Nodes in each capital city on the route (the Primary Nodes serve as the prime point of interconnection in the network by which customers will access their services). During 2002 trouble hit the consortium of Nextgen Networks, and although the network was solid the traffic and sales needed to support the financing unfortunately did not eventuate, During the twelve month
price war A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, the price of production has a different name. If the product is a "good" in the ...
competition bit hard on Nextgen and the other intercity cable providers with the price of backhaul between Australian cities dropping by 70% leaving Nextgen without the funds it needed to repay the debt. This situation was repeated right around the world with many similar owners of
fibre optic cable A fiber-optic cable, also known as an optical-fiber cable, is an assembly similar to an electrical cable, but containing one or more optical fibers that are used to carry light. The optical fiber elements are typically individually coated with ...
s also in financial difficulty and here in Australia with another major Fibre Optic Cable player Amcom backed IP1 Australia who built cable networks from
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
through to
Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...
going into
receivership In law, receivership is a situation in which an institution or enterprise is held by a receiver—a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights"—especially in c ...
and bought at a
fire sale A fire sale is the sale of goods at extremely discounted prices. The term originated in reference to the sale of goods at a heavy discount due to fire damage. It may or may not be defined as a closeout, the final sale of goods to zero inventor ...
price of $45m (about a quarter of its construction cost of $160m) by
Telstra Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets voice, mobile, internet access, pay television and other products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 ...
. Also during this period, a multi
terabit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented a ...
international cable Nava-1 was shelved. On 23 June 2003 administrators were called in by the National Australia Bank. Assured of significant financial commitment by
AARNet AARNet (Australian Academic and Research Network) provides Internet services to the Australian education and research communities and their research partners. AARNet built the Internet in Australia. In 1995, the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Com ...
to utilize the network, on 24 December 2003 Leighton Holdings acquired Nextgen Networks for a total between $20 million and $30 million with the banking syndicate having a share in the company's growth for the next 10 years. Nextgen became a full subsidiary of Leighton Holdings and therefore became debt free.


Timeline

*15 June 2001 Nextgen's network construction begins from Brisbane to Perth *2002 Metronode's first Data Centre becomes operational in West Melbourne *15 May 2003 Nextgen completes construction from Brisbane to Perth *24 December 2003 Leighton acquires Nextgen Networks *2006 The Infoplex Cloud business is established *8 March 2006 Nextgen launched Australia's first
Virtual Private LAN Service Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) is a way to provide Ethernet-based multipoint to multipoint communication over IP or MPLS networks. It allows geographically dispersed sites to share an Ethernet broadcast domain by connecting sites through ps ...
. *30 June 2006 Senetas and Nextgen launched Layer 2 Ethernet VPN, which features encrypted security *2 June 2008 Nextgen announced the acquisition of rival carrier Silk Telecom. *2009 Peter McGrath becomes Managing Director *2 July 2009 Premier Media Group awards Nextgen Networks as provider for high capacity links to major sporting venues *December 2009 Nextgen Networks wins NBN 0m Regional Backbone Blackspot Program (RBBP) *October 2010 Nextgen delivers Australian first 100Gb fibre-optic network *November 2010 Nextgen wins high-capacity transmission contract for Vodafone *10 May 2011 ASC Announces Australia to Singapore cable project to build, own and operate 4,800 km multi-terabit submarine cable system. *October 2011 Nextgen delivers RBBP project for NBN *2012 Australia to Singapore cable system project build begins *August 2012 Metronode completes industry-leading PUE data centre facility *June 2013 Leighton Holdings sold Nextgen to a joint venture owned by Ontario Teachers's Pension Plan (70%) and Leighton Holdings (30%) for $885 million. *July 2013 Nextgen Group Holdings Pty Ltd formed, Legacy Nextgen Networks, Metronode and Infoplex business go to market under single brand Nextgen Group *9 August 2013 Metronode launches NSW Government next generation data centre *November 2014 Long term Managing Director Peter McGrath departs Nextgen Networks *April 2015 David Yuile takes over as CEO of Netxgen Networks *29 June 2016 Vocus Group announces $861 million acquisition of assets from Nextgen Group including Nextgen Networks, North West Cable System (NWCS) and the future Australia Singapore Cable (ASC) project *26 October 2016 Vocus completes acquisitionVocus officially completes Nextgen Networks buyout
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References

{{Internet service providers of Australia Telecommunications companies of Australia Companies established in 2001