Waikato Fibre Network Installation
Waikato

Brief

In early 2018, Civtec was selected to build the communal fibre network across the greater Waikato region in towns such as Tirau, Rotokauri, Te Kowhai, Temple View, Tamahere, Matangi, and Hautapu. This multi-million dollar project required Civtec to deliver a turn-key fibre network to Ultrafast Fibre Ltd, and included the project management, design, civil and technical network construction, quality assurance testing and detailed as-built delivery.

Solution

Drawing on our experience in both civil construction and telecommunication network builds, we were able quickly mobilise a project crew which was dedicated to supporting the UFB2+ network construction. Installation of the network drew heavily on directional drilling, with over 95% of the underground network installed using Horizontal Directional Drills (HDD). Fibre splicing and network integration was handled by Civtec Fibre technicians, with final as-built surveying and GIS upload completed by the Civtec survey and geospatial team.

Challenges

Building a fibre network in built up urban environments with multiple underground services. Many of these towns often had incomplete utility records making service discovery especially important in preventing damage to existing underground utilities

The geography of the build area was large, covering an area from Te Kowhai, all the way down to Tokoroa in the South Waikato. Soil conditions across this area varied considerably, which meant that drilling methods had to be adjusted accordingly.

The announcement that the Rugby World Cup was going to be streamed online in 2019 put extra pressure on the timely completion of the project to ensure that all households in the build area would be able to stream the RWC if needed.

Highlights

As a company whose purpose is ‘Improvement through Connection, it was always a highlight to see the smiles on peoples faces when we finished building the networks in their towns, and they were connected to their fibre for the first time. For people who could only accomplish speeds of less than 5MB/s on the old copper based ADSL network, having access to 1GB/s connection speeds certainly meant a lot to them.