Nokia and Chorus upgrade New Zealand's copper broadband

Nokia has outlined its copper broadband upgrade project across New Zealand in partnership with Chorus, saying it is using VSDL2 vectoring technology to enable speeds of up to 130Mbps.

VDSL2 technology, which removes interference between multiple copper cable lines, is being used in Chorus' network outside of the government's Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) and Chorus' own fibre footprint.

"Nokia's VDSL vectoring is a vital technology to ensure that those yet to connect to Chorus' ultra-fast fibre network can experience the best broadband experience," Chorus head of Network Technology Martin Sharrock said.

"Vectoring has improved average VDSL downstream speeds by over 40 percent and upstream speeds by over 30 percent. This is especially important for rural New Zealand, where fibre to the home has not yet been planned."

Making use of the provider's existing networks infrastructure means New Zealand will maintain its global ranking for broadband speeds, Nokia Fixed Networks president Federico Guillen said, by providing speeds of more than 100Mbps to those still not connected with fibre.

"Nokia's copper solution with vectoring technology complements Chorus' fibre rollout and provides another way to deliver significantly higher speeds," Guillen said, with Nokia now having deployed more than 43 million VDSL2 vectored lines across the globe.

Nokia and Chorus earlier this year also announced a trial of the networking company's new optical wavelength services solution to provide a more open access network infrastructure.

According to Nokia, the solution allows for on-demand service assurance and commissioning of optical wavelength services, which Chorus would then be able to wholesale to service providers.

Nokia said the solution, based on high-bandwidth, cloud-reliant MEF Layer 1 standards, makes up part of its open platform-based One Open Access Network Infrastructure strategy: "An open platform from which it can accelerate the monetisation of its infrastructure by offering fibre access, transport services, premium collocation, and network hubs".

"With its support for compact demarcation devices and end-customer portal access to fully instrumented service assurance dashboards and reports, we believe that solutions like this will further advance our service offer, and put more network control in the hands of our service providers," Chorus CTO Ewan Powell said in May.

Nokia had last year extended its managed services agreement with Chorus for a further three years, with the agreement covering Chorus' legacy networks as well as the telco's rollout of both stages of the New Zealand government's UFB network across the country.

Under the agreement, Nokia is responsible for managing and enhancing network operations across Chorus' fixed-line network using real-time service management capabilities to reduce downtime and increase network performance.

Nokia two years ago additionally extended its contract with Chorus to update its broadband infrastructure across New Zealand by incorporating fibre-based Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology and VDSL2.

Under that contract, Nokia deployed its Intelligent Services Access Manager (ISAM) fibre-to-the-node (FttN) access node, ISAM FX high-capacity fibre platform, and ISAM SX-16 VDSL2 micro-node. Its IP routing and optical transport tech involves use of its Service Router, Extensible Routing System (XRS) Routing Technology, Photonic Service Switch (PSS), and Service Aware Manager.

Nokia also provides end-to-end network design, integration, testing, and operation support for Chorus.

Nokia's contract extensions with New Zealand's incumbent fixed-line operator build on the original contract signed between Chorus and Alcatel-Lucent prior to Nokia's €15.6 billion acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent.

The five-year managed services contract between the two was announced back in October 2015, with Alcatel-Lucent to originally monitor and analyse Chorus' fibre and copper networks.

Nokia's presence in New Zealand telecommunications has also seen it upgrade Spark's mobile and fixed networks, test narrowband-Internet of Things (IoT) with Vodafone NZ, and work on 5G demos with Vodafone NZ.

Earlier this year, Nokia additionally signed on with New Zealand telecommunications carrier TeamTalk to provide emergency services connected vehicles, wireless technology, private 4G, and IoT services and solutions.

Under the deal, which also allows TeamTalk to resell Nokia software, services, and equipment, the two will work on building an IP/Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)-based critical communications radio service using Nokia's backhaul network solution.

"The partnership with Nokia will allow TeamTalk to deliver emergency service vehicle edge, private LTE, and IoT technologies to New Zealand," the Finnish networking giant said.

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