Aussie company lands $260m Christchurch fibre contract
Transfield – which also does work for Telecom's Chorus - will build the cable network for the city's UFB winner, Enable.
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Enable Networks, the council-owned company that won the Christchurch contract in the government’s $1.35 billion ultrafast broadband (UFB) tender, has awarded a $260 million, 10-year contract to build the network to Australian engineering company Transfield.
Altogether, Enable will spend $440 million laying fibre around the city, expanding its existing network. Construction is due to start in the second half of the year.
Transfield’s appointment gels with the theory that Telecom’s network division, Chorus (to be spun off by the end of the year), will take a 50% stake in a joint venture with Enable. The two companies have said they are in talks.
Transfield is one of three contractors (the others are Leighton Engineering’s Visionstream and Downer EDI) that each have a 10-year deal with Chorus under deals collectively worth $3 billion over the period. All three companies are based across the Tasman.
Transfield is also a contractor on Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN).
Another Crown fibre contract winner - Northpower, in Whangarei - told NBR it was using its own engineering division for its rollout. Northpower - which contracts to other lines companies around the North Island - would also offer its services to other UFB winners.
NBR staff
Thu, 02 Jun 2011
Thu, 02 Jun 2011
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Aussie company lands $260m Christchurch fibre contract
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