EonFibre launches high-capacity fibre in New Zealand

EonFibre has announced it is now operational and offering high-capacity wholesale fibre services to New Zealand businesses.

Leveraging advanced technology from Ciena, EonFibre has begun deploying WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) to double traffic capacity on parts of its network. This move underscores the company's additional investment following its separation to establish a dedicated fibre business.

EonFibre aims to provide a cost-effective, secure, and resilient fibre option for selected wholesale customers, including hyperscalers. The deployment of Ciena's WL6e technology is intended to support network resiliency and availability, enabling EonFibre to enhance traffic capacity on certain network sections to 1.6Tb/s for each wavelength compared to previous technologies.

General Manager, Richard Mooney, stated, "EonFibre is now open for business. Our customers will benefit from additional investment into our fibre assets, such as this new Ciena technology, to offer a great wholesale connectivity experience through either EonFibre or One NZ Infrastructure Partners."

He also noted the introduction of a new customer self-service portal, which will allow better visibility of a customer's network inventory and facilitate easier ordering of products and services from EonFibre.

"We've been servicing One New Zealand as a customer for the past month. We are looking forward to partnering with other organisations wanting high-performing fibre services built for businesses not consumers," Mooney added.

The WL6e technology represents a next-generation coherent technology that improves network performance while being more energy-efficient than previous generations.

"We understand how important performance and reliability is in today's digital world, especially with data-hungry applications like AI. Working with Ciena and deploying WL6e is an example of how we're investing more into our fibre assets to provide a capacity boost to meet the bandwidth needs of an increasingly-digital New Zealand," Mooney explained.

EonFibre is providing its customers with access to extensive fibre and core digital infrastructure. This includes over 11,000 kilometres of fibre cables in New Zealand, a core backbone network, metro fibre rings, and connectivity to all leading data centres. Moreover, the company offers international connectivity across three fibre cables - TGA, Hawaiki, and Southern Cross - plus domestic connectivity via Aqualink.

Matt Vesperman, Regional Managing Director, Asia Pacific, Ciena, remarked, "As global investments in AI surge, the role of resilient and flexible network infrastructure becomes critical. With WaveLogic 6, EonFibre is building a network that is 'AI-ready', capable of handling the massive datasets required for training, processing, optimising, and new value creation in an AI era."

EonFibre operates as a dedicated business unit within the One New Zealand group.